the 

university  of 

Connecticut 

libraries 


^^ 

hbl,  stx                                                     ^^ 

:    T153    Q0Mbl31 

77e 

)  kn 

i 

J.S9 
ow. 

7 

1 

> 

so 

^HAT  OUR 
GIELS  OUGHT  TO  KNOW/ 


MAEY  J.  STUDLEY,  M.D., 


GRADUATE,    RESIDENT    PHYSICIAN,    AND     TEACHER    OP    THE    NATTTRAL 
SCIENCES    IN    THE    STATE    NORMAL.   SCHOOL,    rBAMINGHAM,    MASS.; 

ALSO, 

GRADUATE    OP    THE    WOMAN'S   MEDICAL   COLLEGE    OP   NEW   YORK:    DR. 

EMILY  BLACKWELL,    SECRETARY  OF  THE  FACULTY;    DR.   WILLAKD 

PARKER,    CHAIRMAN    OP    THE    BOABD    OP    EXAMINERS. 


"A  perfect  woman,  nobly  planned, 
To  warn,  to  comfort,  and  command; 
And  yet  a  spirit  stiU,  and  bright 
With  something  of  an  angel  light." 


NEW  YORK: 

M.  L.  HOLBROOK  &  CO. 

1878. 


11  i 
S7 


CopyrigMea, 

By  M.  J.  Studley, 

18T8. 


C.  P.  Somerby, 

Electrotyper  and  Printer, 

139  Eighth-st.,  N.  Y. 


CONTENTS. 


PAGE 

Preface iii 

Introductory 5 

CHAPTER  I. 
*' Study  God's  Poem" 12 

CHAPTER  II. 
**Know  Thyself" 26 

CHAPTER  III. 

What   Shall   We    Eat,    and    How    Shall    We 

Cook  It  ? 42 

CHAPTER  IV. 
The  Heart 54 

CHAPTER  V. 
How  We  Breathe 68 

CHAPTER  VI. 
How  We  Breathe. — Continued 81 

CHAPTER  VII. 
The  Brain  and  Ner\^s 97 


ii  Contents. 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

Kerves  and  Nervousness 113 

CHAPTER  IX. 

How  Plants  and  Animals  Are  Perpetuated...  134 

CHAPTER  X. 

How  TO  Become  Beautiful 146 

CHAPTER  XL 

The  Uses  and  Abuses  of  Dress 171 

CHAPTER  XII. 

The  Mate  and  the  Home 199 

CHAPTER  XIII. 
The  Perfect  Woman = 225 

Index 257 


PREFACE. 

Said  Confucius :  "  If  I  am  building  a 
mountain,  and  stop  before  the  last  basketful 
of  earth  is  placed  on  the  summit,  I  have  failed 
of  my  work.  But  if  I  have  placed  but  one 
basketful  on  the  plain,  and  go  on,  I  am  really 
building  a  mountain." 

This  is  my  little  basketful  of  earth  which 
I  bring  to  the  ever-growing  mountain  of  liter- 
ature upon  education.  "  There  cannot  be,  on 
such  an  inexhaustible  subject,  one  book  too 
much,  even  after  the  best — except  the  worst." 

In  my  basketful  you  will  find  some  grains 
of  simple  truth  which  I  have  picked  up  "  along 
the  shore  of  the  great  ocean."  I  have  set 
them  among  gems  from  Homer,  from  Moses, 
from   Solomon,   from    Plato,   from   Jesus,   and 


iv  Preface. 

from    many   modern    poets,   philosophers,   and 

teachers,   and  now  they  are  yours,  dear  girls, 

for    whom    they   have    been    collected.      May 

they   help    you    ''to    do    and   to   become   your 

best"! 

M.  J.  S. 

State  Normal  ScnooL, 
Framlnghaji,  Mass.,  Jan.^  1878, 


\ 


W\U  Ouf  G(:iil^  Ou^t  to  Kqow. 

INTKODUCTORT. 

As  vigorous  health,  and  its  accompanying  high  spir- 
its, are  larger  elements  of  happiness  than  any  other 
things  whatever,  the  teaching  how  to  maintain  them 
is  a  teaching  that  yields  to  no  other  whatever. — Her- 
bert Spencer. 

Having  been  privileged,  for  a  number  of 
years,  to  associate  with  "  our  girls "  in  schools 
both  public  and  private,  as  a  teacher  of  the  laws 
of  health,  there  have  come  to  me  from  time 
to  time  not  a  few  requests,  both  from  mothers 
and  daughters,  for  a  printed  manual  of  the 
lessons  given  in  this  capacity.  These  requests 
have  led  me  to  believe  that  there  is  room  for 
such  a  book  among  the  many  which  seek  to 
make  our  young  women  wiser  and  better. 


6  Introductory. 

The  higher  education  of  "  our  girls  "  is  the 
prominent  topic  of  the  day  in  the  press,  in  the 
magazine,  in  the  parlor,  and  on  the  platform. 
ISTew  colleges  are  springing  up  for  them,  and 
old  ones  are  gradually  opening  their  doors  to 
them.  The  nineteenth  century  is  coming  to 
recognize  the  meaning  of  what  Moses  told  the 
world  so  long  ago,  when  he  said  God  put  Eve 
beside  Adam,  instead  of  putting  her  above  him 
or  below  him,  or  into  a  "female  seminary"  all 
to  herself;  and  along  with  this  recognition  goes 
the  underlying  one  that  a  sickly  Eve  was  no 
more  a  part  of  the  Divine  plan  than  was  a 
sickly  Adam.  The  record  is  emphatic  and 
clean  upon  this  point.  Sublime  in  its  simple 
eloquence  as  is  the  character  of  Moses  himself, 
the  narrative  says,  "  And  God  saw  everything 
that  he  had  made,  and,  behold,  it  was  very 
good " ;  but  in  the  years  that  roll  between  then 
and  now  it  appears  that  there  has  been  a  deal 
of  interference  with  the  original  "very  good" 
work,  until  it  would  hardly  seem  as  if  God 
could  recognize  his  pattern  in  the  sickly,  feeble, 
nervous,  jaded,  hysterical,  worry -faced,  and 
wasp-waisted  creature  who  spends  half  her  time 


Introductory.  7 

in  telling  her  aches  and  the  other  half  in  the 
Bpecialist's  office. 

It  is  not  strange  that  this  creature  should 
have  been  refused  admission  to  colleges  whose 
work  is  planned  for  sound  minds  in  sound  bod- 
ies, nor  that  the  world  should  be  slow  to  be- 
lieve that  she  is  capable  of  doing  this  work ;  but 
it  happens  that,  along  with  the  movement  to- 
w^ard  higher  intellectual  culture,  there  is  a  no 
less  vigorous  campaign  in  behalf  of  the  temple 
which  the  soul  inhabits,  that  it  may  become  fit 
for  the  Hoi  J  Ghost's  indwelling  If  Eve  is 
going  to  stand  beside  Adam,  where  God  put 
her,  she  must  take  such  care  of  her  body  as  to 
insure  its  being  a  help  rather  than  a  hindrance 
to  her  work;  and  it  has  been  a  constant  joy 
during  my  association  with  school-girls,  in  the 
capacity  already  named,  to  find  a  growing  senti- 
ment in  favor  of  that  vigorous  health  which 
is  the  prime  factor  of  success  in  life. 

It  has  long  been  said  by  prominent  medical 
men  that  women  themselves  are  responsible 
for  a  large  share  of  their  characteristic  w^eak- 
nesses,  and  the  following  extract  from  a  note 
addressed  to  me  by  Dr.  Willard  Parker  only 
echoes  the  prevailing  sentiment  of  the   prpfes- 


8  Introductory. 

sion.  He  says :  ''  Women  kill  themselves  by 
their  bad  management  in  a  mechanical  way. 
They  make  themselves  portable  machines  for 
efiete  matter.  Their  nerves  cry  out  when  fed 
by  a  dirty  blood,  and  the  cry  is  called  neural- 
gia. What  folly  to  give  an  anodyne  for  the 
neuralgia  and  let  the  cause  of  it  remain !" 

It  is  not  strange  that  the  gentlemen  of 
the  profession  were  limited  to  generalities  in 
their  charo^es  ao:ainst  women  for  maltreatment 
of  their  bodies.  They  never  wore  the  absurd 
machinery  with  which  the  conventionally-dressed 
woman  is  deformed,  and  how  could  they  attack 
its  details  or  make  any  real  progress  toward 
reform  !  The  real  dress  -  reform  necessarily 
waited  to  be  inaugurated  by  medical  women, 
and  its  progress  keeps  pace  with  theirs  toward 
popular  acceptance.  No  woman  who  under- 
stands the  beauty  of  the  original  design  of  the 
human  body  will  ever  seek  to  distort  that 
body  by  subjecting  it  to  the  demands  of  a 
fashion  which  is  totally  regardless  of  natural 
laws;  it  therefore  follows,  as  surely  as  day 
follows  night,  that  the  women  who  study  med- 
icine are  the  women  who  have  most  respect 
for  theii*  bodies,  and  who  have,  therefore,  the 


Introductory.  9 

soundest  and  most  serviceable  bodies — bodies 
upon  which  they  can  count  for  any  amount 
of  intellectual  or  other  work  as  surely  as  men 
can  depend  upon   their  bodies. 

Says  the  Eev.  Charles  Kingsley  in  his  ex- 
cellent book  on  "Health  and  Education": 
"  Let  women  who  have  studied  medicine  teach 
to  other  women  what  every  ^voman  ought  to 
know."  And  long  before  he  said  it  they  were 
in  the  field,  ready  and  anxious  to  carry  the 
gospel  of  health  to  their  misguided  and  suffer- 
ing sisters.  Having  learned  what  is  causing 
so  much  misery  among  them,  they  find  it  diffi- 
cult to  wait  in  the  office  for  the  mischief  to 
be  done  which  they  know  is  so  much  more 
easily  prevented  than  cured ;  hence  they  go 
forth  to  the  school  and  the  lecture-room  as 
missionaries  and  ministers  of  the  goddess  Hy- 
geia,  the  fair  daughter  who  put  more  faith  in 
correct  living  than  in  the  charmed  serpents  of 
her  father  ^sculapius. 

"The  laws  of  health  are  the  laws  of  God, 
and  are  as  binding  as  the  decalogue,"  is  an 
oft-quoted  saying  of  Dr.  Parker's.  We  take 
great  care  to  teacli  the  decalogue  to  our  young 
men   and   maidens;    but   are  we  just  to   them 


10  Introductory. 

when  we  neglect  to  teacli  them  what  they 
ought  to  know  about  their  bodies,  in  order 
that  they  may  obey  the  laws  of  those  bodies  ? 

My  experience  with  "  our  girls "  convinces 
me  that  they  do  not  willfully  sin  against  their 
bodies,  but  that  they  are  sadly  ignorant  of 
the  laws  which  govern  them.  We  all  admit 
that  it  is  the  mother's  duty  to  acquaint  them 
with  these  laws ;  but  it  is  a  lamentable  fact 
that  the  present  generation  of  mothers  is  wo- 
full}^  deficient  in  the  ability  to  do  so.  They 
admit  it,  and  are,  as  a  rule,  glad  to  secure 
the  aid  of  an  educated  lady  physician  in  sup- 
plementing their  home  work. 

And  so,  dear  girls,  we  come  to  you,  glad 
to  help  your  mothers  teach  you  what  you 
ought  to  know.  It  is  the  expression  of  the 
highest  thought  of  God,  this  temple  which  we 
inhabit ! 

Plato  said  to  his  pupils:  "You  take  a  jour- 
ney to  Olympia  to  behold  the  work  of  Phidias, 
and  each  of  you  thinks  it  a  misfortune  to  die 
witliout  a  knowledge  of  such  things ;  and  will 
you  have  no  inclination  to  see  and  understand 
those  works  for  which  there  is  no  need  to  take 
a  journey,   but  which  are  ready  and  at   hand, 


Introductory.  1 1 

even  to  tliose  who  bestow  no  pains !  Will 
you  never  perceive  what  you  are,  or  for  what 
you  are  born,  or  for  what  purpose  you  are 
admitted  to  behold  this  spectacle !" 

"  Phidias  worked  on  marble,  and  the  light 
of  hia  creation  still  beams  from  afar.  Raphael 
worked  on  canvas,  and  gave  to  the  world  a 
beauty  which  has  thrilled  hearts  througli  all 
these  ages.  "What  shall  we  fashion,  who  work 
upon  the  breath  of  God?" 


CHAPTER  I. 

"STUDY   GOD'S  POEM." 

**Thoit  need'st  but  eyes  rightly  to  see  his  work, 
A  soul,  a  soul  to  understand  it  all, 
A  heart  to  feel  it  simply  as  it  is: 
How  will  the  loving  soul  thrill  through  thee  then, 
Which  he  has  breathed  into  the  eternal  work, 
Into  the  beauteous  face  of  man  and  flowers ! 

o 

It  becometh  man  to  understand 

What  God  doth  speak  out  loudly  through  his  works.'* 

— Leopold  Schefer. 
"  And  the  Lord  God  formed  man  of  the  dust  of  the 
earth,  and  breathed  into  his  nostrils  the  breath  of  life." 

— Moses. 

You  can  find  this  "  dust  of  the  earth  "  very 
easily  by  putting  any  bone  into  the  fire  long 
enough  for  its  animal  matter  to  be  separated 
from   its    earthy    constituents,    and    then    your 


''Study  God's  Poemr  13 

knowledge  of  chemistry  and  mineralogy  will 
tell  you  that  the  dust  into  which  the  bone 
resolves  itself  is  just  the  same  dust  which  goes 
to  make  the  marble  of  the  Yenus  de  Milo, 
the  coral  which  you  wear  over  your  heart, 
the  jewel  which  sparkles  on  your  finger,  or 
your  plaster  cast    of  Psyche. 

I  once  had  a  little  black  girl  in  a  Sunday- 
Bchool,  who,  in  reply  to  the  question,  "  Of 
what  are  you  made  ?"  said,  "  Mud,  ma'am." 
And  she  was  no  less  accurate  than  Moses ;  for 
you  know  you  have  learned  that  three-fourths 
of  your  body  consist  of  water,  and  we  all  know 
that  dust  and  water  make  mud.  And  do  you 
know  what  becomes  of  the  dust  which  remains 
when  the  bone  is  burned  ?  Some  of  this 
"  dust "  is  called  phosphate  of  lime,  and  the 
farmers  put  it  on  the  fields,  that  you  may  get 
it  for  your  own  bones  in  the  form  of  corn 
and  beans  and  wheat,  while  the  match-makers 
(I  mean  Lucifer  matches)  also  take  a  share 
of  it  to  use  in  their  factories.  It  is  said  that 
each  one  of  us  carries  about  in  her  skeleton 
enough  phosphorus,  in  the  form  of  phosphate 
of  lime,  to   make  four  thousand   matches. 

Other  portions  of  the    "dust"    which   com- 


14  "Study  God's  Poemr 

poses  the  bones  are  called  carbonate  of  lime; 
and  when  we  have  spent  "  our  years  as  a  tale 
that  is  told,"  it  is  quite  possible  tliat  this  dust 
of  ours  may  reappear  as  a  handsome  coral 
Bpray  to  adorn  the  maidens  who  shall  come 
after  us.  Besides  the  phosphate  and  carbonate 
of  lime,  there  is  a  bit  of  fluoride  of  lime  in 
our  bones,  and  this  may  have  existed  in  some 
gem  which  has  sparkled  in  the  crown  of  an 
emperor,  so  wisely  does  Dame  Nature  econ- 
omise her  resources.  She  has,  as  you  know, 
but  sixty-three  elements  to  work  with,  and  she 
has  to  turn  and  twist  and  hash  and  warm  over 
her  odds  and  ends,  over  and  over  and  over 
again,  in  order  to  keep  all  her  ovens  supplied. 
These,  then,  are  the  main  elements  which  go  to 
make  the  dust  of  your  bones — phosphate,  car- 
bonate and  fluoride  of  lime — and  the  bones  of 
your  pet  kitten  are  made  of  the  same  sub- 
stances. Not  only  this,  but  she  lias  ab(.ut  the 
same  number  of  bones  that  you  have,  for  is 
she  not  a  first-class  creature,  a  vertebrate  ?  Do 
you  know  how  a  vertebra  looks  ?  If  not,  let 
me  beg  you  to  go  to  the  meat  market  at  once 
and  learn  just  how  that  column  of  little  bones 
looks   of  which  your  "  spine  "  consists.     Look, 


''Study  God's  Poemr  15 

too,  at  the  nice  little  cushions  between  the  ver- 
tebrae by  whicli  all  the  vertebrates  except  the 
poor  turtle  and  the  corseted  woman  secure 
such  flexibility  of  the  spinal  column  as  consti- 
tutes the  o^race  of  motion. 

Have  jou  seen  the  inner  surface  of  a  turtle's 
back,  and  how  all  the  vertebriTe  are  consolidated 
so  that  the  creature  can  no  more  execute  a 
graceful  movement  than  you  could  if  you  had  to 
carry  your  house  on  your  back  ?  Mythology 
tells  us  that  the  turtle  alone  of  all  the  animals 
refused  to  attend  the  wedding  of  Jupiter  and 
Juno,  and  that  for  this  slight  the  latter  con- 
demned her  to  forever  carry  her  house  on  her 
back.  I  wonder  what  offense  those  women  are 
expiating  who  hold  their  vertebrae  in  the  m.an- 
ner  of  the  turtle  by  means  of  "  stays  ? "  It 
hardly  seems  possible  that  any  animal  would 
voluntarily  put  itself  ur.der  such  restraint. 

Have  you  ever  observed  the  beautiful  adapt- 
ations of  the  parts  of  tlie  skeleton  of  a  verte- 
brate to  each  other  and  to  their  uses  ?  If  not, 
let  mj  ask  you  to  go  to  a  Xatural  History  mu- 
seum at  your  earliest  opportunity,  and  see  what 
a  superb  specimen  of  architecture  is  presented 
by  this  array  of  bones. 


16  ''Study  God's  Poem:' 

Observe  the  skull  or  brain  case ;  if  possible, 
the  human  skull,  since  that  is  the  finest  of  all. 
How  perfect  the  arch  of  the  dome  !  How  firm, 
and  yet  how  fine,  the  sutures  or  seams  where 
the  separate  bones  unite  !  How  strong  and  able 
to  resist  the  shock  of  falls  is  the  occiput,  or 
backbone  !  Compare  its  thickness  with  that  of 
the  bones  which  form  the  eye-sockets,  and  see 
with  what  nicety  the  requisite  strength  is  secured 
at  this  point  by  thin  bones,  which  are  almost 
transparent,  and  have  no  need  to  be  thick  to 
resist  shocks  such  as  the  back  of  the  skull  is 
liable  to  receive.  Look  then  into  the  nostrils, 
and  see  those  fine  and  beautifully  twisted  bones 
which  are  so  nicely  adapted  to  increasing  the 
space  over  which  the  air  has  to  pass  on  its  way 
to  the  lungs,  that  it  may  be  warmed  and  fitted 
for  introduction  into  such  choice  company  as  the 
air-cells  of  the  lungs  afford.  Not  only  this,  but 
also  an  increase  of  space  for  the  distribution  of 
the  nerve  of  smell  is  secured.  The  longer  the 
dog's  nose  and  the  more  twisted  these  turbina- 
ted bones,  as  they  are  called,  the  keener  is  his 
sense  of  smell.  And  why  not  for  you  ?  The 
nez  retrousse  may  possibly  add  to  the  saucy 
prettiness  of  the  face  which  it  matches,  but  for 


''Study  God's  PoemP  17 

real  Bervice  and  as  a  mark  of  high  breeding  the 
aquiline  and  the  Roman  noses  can  hardly  be 
excelled.  A  strongly  -  built  nose  and  a  chin 
which  does  not  retreat  as  if  anxious  to  get  out 
of  sight   are  proofs  of  a  well-built  skeleton. 

The  houses  built  with  hands  soon  fall  into 
hopeless  ruin  if  the  frames  be  of  poor  timber, 
poorly  jointed,  and  the  same  is  true  of  the  house 
each  of  us  lives  in  and  which  Paul  asks  us  to 
call  a  temple  for  the  Holy  Ghost's  indwelling. 
I  don't  believe  the  Holy  Ghost  will  ever  make 
his  home  in  a  poorly-built  house.  He  may 
make  it  occasional  missionary  visits,  and  then 
the  soul  may  shine  out  of  it  with  a  luster  which 
is  truly  surprising ;  but  he  doesn't,  as  a  rule, 
take  up  his  abode  there.  Infinitely  better  than 
an  inheritance  of  bank  stock  with  a  poor  house- 
frame  is  a  well-built  house  without  the  bank 
stock,  for  if  our  parents  give  us  the  latter  we 
can  know  the  luxury  of  winning  our  own  dollars 
and  spending  them,  too ;  while  in  the  former 
case  we  can  only  lie  about  in  helpless  impo- 
tence and  see  our  bank  stock  going  to  enrich 
the  doctors.  Says  Mr.  John  Burroughs :  "  I 
notice  that  when  a  family  begins  to  run  out,  it 
turns  out  its  toes,  drops  off  at  the  heel,  shortens 


18  ''Study  God's  PoemP 

its  jaw  and  dotes  on  small  feet  and  hands." 
What's  to  hinder  a  structure  from  going  to 
ruin  when  the  corner-stones  give  "svay ! 

Look  now  at  the  thorax  or  chest.  See  what 
a  perfect  cage  it  is  for  the  protection  of  its 
occupants,  and  how  light  and  airy  it  is  at  the 
same  time.  Strength  joined  with  lightness  and 
elasticity  sufficient  for  perfect  freedom  of  mo- 
tion of  all  its  parts.  See  how  beautifully  the 
round  head  of  each  rib  fits  into  the  little  socket 
prepared  for  it,  and  which  in  life  is  so  nicely 
lubricated  that  the  constant  motion  of  each  head 
in  its  socket  is  unnoticed,  although  each  rib 
rises  and  falls  with  every  breath  ;  that  is,  when 
it  is  not  held  in  splints  by  that  instrument  of 
torture  which  one  sees  in  all  the  shop  -  windows, 
labeled  "  Patent  glove-fitting,"  a  machine  which 
has  been  the  cause  of  more  misery  to  women 
than  any  other  one  thing.  I  sometimes  think 
that  Moses'  account  of  Eve's  eating  the  fatal 
apple  and  then  running  for  a  fig-leaf  refers  to 
her  putting  on  a  corset  and  the  abominations 
which  hang  thereby. 

Believe  me,  dear  girls,  you  cannot  compress 
the  walls  of  this  delicate  cage  without  paying 
the   penalty  in   ways  which   you  would   never 


''Study  GocVs  PoemP  19 

Buspect.  The  corner-stone  of  a  house  may 
crumble  away  and  never  be  noticed  till  the 
tower  falls  over,  and  so  you  may  undermine 
your  foundation  by  crowding  your  chest  bones 
upon  each  other,  and  the  head  alone  will  utter 
its  protest  by  aching.  That  is  the  tower  falling 
over. 

Look  now  at  the  complexity  of  the  frame- 
work of  the  wrists  and  the  ankles,  the  hands 
and  the  feet.  Note  that  it  takes  eight  little 
bones  in  the  wrist,  all  of  them  so  adjusted  and 
lubricated  as  to  move  upon  each  other  in  most 
exquisite  nicety,  so  that  the  movements  of  the 
human  hand  have  no  parallel  in  the  universe 
for  beauty  and  variety.  What  do  you  suppose 
the  Author  of  all  this  mechanism  thinks  when 
he  sees  a  string  of  bangles  hung  on  it ! 

Look  at  the  foot  with  its  marvelous  array 
of  bones,  all  adapted  for  motion  by  the  most 
perfect  system  of  joints  which  could  possibly  be 
made,  and  tell  me  what  the  maker  of  it  must 
think  when  he  sees  that  complex  and  beautiful 
instep  tipped  wholly  out  of  its  position  on  a 
French  heel,  and  those  toes  folded  upon  each 
other  in  helpless  inactivity,  not  one  of  them  able 


20  ''Studij  God's  Poem:' 

to  move  itself  or  assert  its  "  inalienable  right  to 
life,  liberty  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness." 

Says  Mr.  John  Burrouglis  in  his  charming 
little  book,  "Winter  Sunshine,"  which  I  hope 
you  all  have  read  or  will  read,  "  Occasionally  on 
the  sidewalk,  amid  the  dapper,  swiftly-moving, 
high-heeled  boots  and  gaiters,  I  catch  a  glimpse 
of  the  naked  human  foot.  ISTimbly  it  scuffs 
along:  the  toes  spread,  the  sides  flatten,  the 
heel  protrudes ;  it  grasps  the  curbing,  or  bends 
to  the  form  of  the  uneven  surfaces — a  thing 
sensuous  and  alive,  that  seems  to  take  cogniz- 
ance of  whatever  it  touches  or  passes.  How 
primitive  and  uncivil  it  looks  in  such  company — 
a  real  barbarian  in  the  parlor !  We  are  so 
unused  to  the  human  anatomy,  to  simple,  un- 
adorned nature,  that  it  looks  a  little  repulsive ; 
but  it  is  beautiful  for  all  that. .  .  .  That  unham- 
pered, vitally  playing  piece  of  anatomy  is  the 
type  of  the  pedestrian ;  man  returned  to  first 
principles,  in  direct  contact  and  intercourse 
with  the  earth  and  the  elements ;  his  faculties 
unsheathed,  his  mind  plastic,  his  body  tough- 
ened, his  heart  light,  his  soul  dilated;  while 
those  cramped  and  distorted  members  in  the 
calf    and    kid    are    the    unfortunate    wretches 


''Study  GocVs  Poemr  21 

doomed  to  carriages  and  cusliions. .  .  .1  fear  the 
American  is  becoming  disqualiiied  for  the  manly- 
art  of  walking  by  a  falling  off  in  the  size  of 
his  foot. ...  A  small,  trim  foot,  well  booted  or 
gaitered,  is  the  national  vanity.  How  we  stare 
at  the  big  feet  of  foreigners,  and  wonder  what 
may  be  the  price  of  leather  in  those  countries, 
and  where  all  the  aristocratic  blood  is,  that 
these  plebeian  extremities  so  predominate.  If 
we  were  admitted  to  the  confidences  of  the 
shoemaker  to  Her  Majesty  or  to  His  Koyal 
Highness,  no  doubt  we  would  modify  our  views 
on  this  latter  pomt,  for  a  truly  large  and  royal 
nature  is  never  stunted  in  the  extremities ;  a 
little  foot  never  yet  supported  a  great  char- 
acter. 

"  It  is  said  that  Englishmen,  when  they 
fii'st  come  to  this  country,  are  for  some  time 
under  the  impression  that  American  women  all 
have  deformed  feet,  they  are  so  coy  of  them 
and  so  studiously  careful  to  keep  them  hid." 

Indeed,  it  seems  to  me  that  many  of  us 
spend  our  lives  in  trying  to  convince  our  Maker 
that  he  doesn't  understand  his  business.  AYe  are 
averse  to  the  study  of  his  plan  of  action,  and, 
instead  of  taking  the  body  as  he  gives  it  to  us, 


22  ''Study  GocCs  Poem:' 

and  trying  to  make  it  conform  to  his  laws,  we 
squeeze  it  and  bind  it  and  tilt  it  from  its 
erectness,  until  we  are  mere  caricatures  of  the 
Eve  whom  we  pretend  to  admire  in  the  pictures 
and  statues,  but  whom  we  utterly  refuse  to 
imitate. 

Believe  me,  dear  girls,  God  knows  best 
how  to  shape  the  framework  of  your  soul's 
habitation  so  that  the  light  of  a  healthy,  free 
and  happy  life  shall  shine  out  from  its  walls 
and  through  its  mndows.  Do  not,  I  pray  you, 
distort  and  fetter  it  into  total  deformity,  but 
rather  seek  to  glorify  him  who  made  3'OU  by 
becoming  gloriously  strong. 

Mr.  Emerson,  in  his  essay  on  "  Beauty," 
tells  us  "  it  is  the  soundness  of  the  bones  that 
ultimates  itself  in  a  peach-bloom  complexion; 
health  of  constitution  that  makes  the  sparkle 
and  the  power  of  the  eye.  'Tis  the  adjust- 
ment of  the  size  and  of  the  joining  of  the 
sockets  of  tlie  skeleton  that  gives  grace  of  out- 
line and  the  finer  grace  of  movement.  The 
cat  and  the  deer  cannot  move  or  sit  inelegantly. 
The  dancing-master  can  never  teach  a  badly- 
built  man  to  walk  well.  The  tint  of  the  flower 
proceeds  from  its  root,  and  the  lusters  of  the 


''Study  God's  PoemP  23 

sea-shell  begin  with  its  existence.. .  .The  felici- 
ties of  design  in  art  or  in  works  of  nature  are 
shadows  or  forerunners  of  that  beauty  which 
reaches  its  perfection  in  tlie  human  form.  All 
men  are  its  lovers.  Wherever  it  goes  it  creates 
joy  and  hilarity,  and  everything  is  permitted 
to  it.  It  reaches  its  height  in  woman.  '  To 
Eve/  say  ihe  Mahometans,  '  God  gave  two- 
thirds  of  all  beauty.'  A  beautiful  woman  is  a 
practical  poet,  taming  her  savage  mate,  plant- 
ing tenderness,  hope  and  eloquence  in  all  whom 
she  approaches." 

And  each  one  of  you  has  the  right  to  be 
perfectly  beautiful  by  so  living  that  you  shall 
be  perfectly  healthy.  The  transient  beauty  of 
the  hectic  flush  and  the  brilliant  eye  of  the 
dying  consumptive  are  akin  to  the  ephemeral 
brilliancy  of  the  autumnal  foliage,  but  it  is  the 
final  flicker  of  the  candle  which  precedes  its 
extinction. 

To  be  truly  beautiful,  with  the  unfading 
beauty  of  health  and  culture  of  mind  and  soul 
which  good  health  make  possible,  is  to  grow 
beautiful  as  long  as  you  live.  What  could  be 
finer  in  the  way  of  a  beautiful  face  than  the 
pictures  give  us  of  Martha  Washington  in  her 


24  ''Study  God's  Poem:' 

post-meridian  ripeness  !  Yet  how  rarely  one 
sees  so  handsome  a  face  past  the  age  of  fifty  ! 
It  is  the  exception  where  it  ought  to  be  the 
rule,  and  the  reason  why  it  is  the  exception  is, 
because  young  women  have  learned  so  little 
up  to  the  present  time  of  natural  ways  of  liv- 
ing. 

It  seems  to  be  characteristic  of  the  reason- 
ing animal  to  err,  while  the  ones  who  depend 
upon  instinct  are  pretty  sure  to  go  right. 

"  But,"  I  hear  you  ask,  "  supposing  we  be- 
gin life  with  sickly  bodies,  as  a  direct  inherit- 
ance from  sickly  parents.  "What  if  our  bones 
are  already  deformed  by  rickets,  because  our 
fathers  and  mothers  had  rickety  skeletons,  or 
because  they  fed  ns  in  such  wrong  ways  in 
our  infancy  as  to  make  ours  so  ?"  Then,  I  say, 
go  to  work  and  learn  what  it  is  which  makes 
rickety  bones,  and  supply  those  defects  in 
your  early  diet  which  have  resulted  in  such 
deformities.  Enough  has  been  written  upon 
this  subject  to  eradicate  rickety  skeletons  from 
the  whole  human  family,  if  they  would  but 
read  and  heed. 

But,  above  all  things  else,  if  you  are  one 
of  those  unhappy   ones   whose  inheritance  is  a 


''Study  God's  Poem:'  25 

frail  body  wliicli  no  amount  of  hygienic  care 
can  make  sound,  I  pray  you  think  well  before 
you  venture  to  transmit  your  frailties  to  inno- 
cent children  who  ought  never  to  be  born. 
Kather  be  content  to  live  and  die  an  "old 
maid,"  and  so  a  heroine. 


CHAPTEE  II. 

"KNOW    THYSELF." 

The  beautiful  youth  Cliarmides,  who  is  also 
the  most  temperate  of  mortals,  is  asked  by 
Socrates,  ^'What  is  Temperance?"  He  answers 
(1),  "  Quietness."  "  But  temperance  is  a  fine 
and  noble  thing;  and  quietness,  in  many  or 
most  cases,  is  not  so  fine  a  thing  as  quick- 
ness." He  tries  again,  and  says  (2)  that  tem- 
perance is  modesty.  But  this,  again,  is  set 
aside  by  a  sophistical  application  of  Homer: 
for  temperance  is  good,  as  well  as  noble,  and 
Homer  has  declared  that  "  modesty  is  not  good 
for  a  needy  man."  (3),  Once  more  Charmides 
makes  the  attempt.  Tliis  time  he  gives  a  defi- 
nition which  lie  has  heard,  and  of  which  lie 
insinuates  that  Critias  is  the  author :   "  Temper- 


''Knoio   Thyself:'  27 

ance  is  doiDo;  one's  own  business."  But  the 
artisan  who  makes  another  man's  shoes  may 
be  temperate,  and  yet  he  is  not  doing  his  own 
business.  How  is  this  riddle  to  be  explained  ? 
. .  .  Critias,  in  the  spirit  of  Socrates  and  of 
Greek  life  generally,  proposes  as  a  fifth  defi- 
nition. Temperance  is  self-knowledge.  But  all 
sciences  have  a  subject:  number  is  the  subject 
of  arithmetic,  health  of  medicine :  what  is  the 
subject  of  temperance  or  wisdom  1  The  answer 
is,  that  (6)  Temperance  is  the  knowledge  of 
what  a  man  knows,  and  of  what  he  does  not 
know. .  .  . 

In  this  dialogue  may  be  noted  the  Greek 
ideal  of  beauty  and  goodness,  the  vision  of 
the  fair  soul  in  the  fair  body,  realized  in  the 
beautiful  Charmides.  —  Joivetfs  Dialogues  of 
Plato. 

Although  Plato,  in  this  dialogue,  gives  no 
abstract  definition  of  temperance,  it  is  yet 
plain  that  he  includes  self-knowledge  as  a 
prime  constituent  of  that  virtue.  Another 
writer  says,  "  Nearly  all  the  evils  in  life  come 
to  ns  from  a  want  of  self-domination,"  and  I 
am  sure  you  will  all  agree  with  both  of  them. 


28  ''Know   Thy  self P 

Let  us  therefore  go  on  to  study  ourselves, 
that  we  may  know   how  to  manage  ourselves. 

You  have  learned,  in  the  foregoing  chap- 
ter, that  a  variety  of  elements  enter  into  the 
composition  of  the  framework  of  your  bodies, 
and  that  the  various  parts  of  that  framework 
are  most  nicely  adapted  to  each  other  and  to 
their  respective  offices.  Your  own  observation 
shows  yon  that  this  bony  framework  is  clothed 
with  a  covering  of  soft  tissues,  and  you  also 
are  conscious  that  a  certain  number  of  organs 
reside  in  its  cavities.  These  organs  you  are 
accustomed  to  call  vital  organs,  and  you  are 
aware  that  all  your  powers  of  thought  and 
action  depend  upon  their  harmony  of  action. 
That  constitutes  health.  All  sickness  is  dis- 
cord. 

Let  us  now  go  on  to  study  in  detail  the 
provision  made  by  the  Author  of  all  this 
mechanism  for  maintaining  both  its  vitality 
and  its  harmony.  "We  will  begin,  if  you 
please,  with  the  provisions  for  digestion  in  the 
simplest  forms  of  animal  life,  and  glance  at 
the  beautiful  gradations  by  which  we  arrive  at 
the  most  complex  apparatus,  as  it  exists  in 
our  bodies,  by  which  the   constant  wear  of  all 


''Knoio   Thy  self r  29 

animal  organisms  is   made   good,  and  life  and 
growth  maintained. 

The  general  name  Protozoa^  meaning  first 
animals,  is  applied  to  a  large  number  of  very 
small,  simple,  aquatic  creatures,  too  small  to 
be  seen  by  the  naked  eye,  and  only  visible 
by  aid  of  the  microscope.  These  little  crea- 
tures are  mere  dots  of  jelly-like  tissue,  desti- 
tute of  any  apparatus  for  taking  in  or  digesting 
food,  beyond  a  set  of  delicate  fringes,  called 
cilia^  meaning  eye-lashes,  whose  office  is  to 
float  little  particles  of  food  toward  them  as 
they  swim  about  in  the  water.  They  are  not 
only  mouthless,  but  headless,  and  one  part  of 
their  body  is  just  as  capable  of  eating  as  an- 
other. They  may  be  said  to  get  around  their 
food.  A  very  easy  w^ay  of  living,  you  see,  to 
float  around  in  the  water  and  live  on  what 
happens  to  stick  to  you,  without  even  the 
trouble  of  swallowins;.  The  next  sub-kino^dom 
includes  all  the  radiated  animals,  such  as  star- 
fishes, sea-urchins,  sea -cucumbers,  etc.  You 
can  pick  up  great  numbers  of  star-fishes  on 
the  rocks  by  the  seashore  at  low  tide,  and  if 
you  look  carefully  in  little  pools  and  crevices 
between    the   rocks   you   may    find    something 


30  ''Know  Thy  self r 

that  looks  like  a  chestnut-burr.  That  is  a  sea- 
urchin,  or  echinus.  Then,  if  jou  look  at  the 
under  surface  of  the  star-fish,  you  will  find  a 
round  hole  in  the  center  of  him.  That  is  his 
mouth,  and  quite  likely  his  stomach  will  be  in 
his  mouth,  turned  wrong  side  out,  as  that  is  a 
way  he  has  of  doing.  He  is  very  fond  of  oys- 
ters, raw.  He  takes  one  in  his  arms,  shell 
and  all,  and  thrusts  his  stomach  in  the  cleft  of 
the  valves  and  sucks  out  his  victim  alive.  This, 
you  see,  is  quite  an  advance  upon  the  proto- 
zoan style  of  eating;  but  when  you  look  at 
the  under  surface  of  the  sea-urchin  you  will 
find  a  surprising  improvement  upon  the  star- 
fish, in  that  he  has  a  whole  set  of  teeth.  [N'ot 
only  this,  but  he  is,  in  one  sense,  ahead  of  you 
in  the  dental  business,  in  that  he  has  five  jaws, 
while  you  have  but  two,  and  each  jaw  has  its 
own  tooth  all  to  itself. 

The  next  sub -kingdom  includes  the  Mot- 
lusks,  or  soft-bodied  animals  like  snails,  oysters 
and  clams,  who  live  in  shells  and  carry  their 
houses  wherever  they  go,  always  having  their 
trunks  packed  and  ready  for  a  move.  If  you 
take  a  clam  from  his  house  before  he  is  cooked, 
and  look   carefully  at  that   edge   of  him  which 


''K71010  Thy  self P  31 

was  under  the  hinge,  and  at  that  end  of  him 
which  is  opposite  his  siphon  (that  is,  the  tube 
which  is  often  called  his  neck,  but  it  isn't  his 
neck  at  all,  because  it  isn't  in  the  right  place 
for  a  neck,  and  because  he  hasn't  any  neck, 
either),  you  will  lind  a  hole  with  two  pairs  of 
feelers  to  it.  That  is  his  mouth,  and  the  feelers 
are  his  lips.  They  are  very  long  for  lips,  but 
they  have  to  serve  for  lips  and  tongue,  too. 
He  has  no  teeth,  and  his  mouth  opens  right 
into  his  stomach,  in  the  handiest  way  possible. 
Taken  as  a  whole,  he  is  considerably  more 
highly  organized  than  the  people  already  spoken 
of,  even  though  the  sea-urchin  is  ahead  of  him 
in  dentistry.  But  there's  a  fellow  in  his  kingdom 
who  is  considerably  ahead  of  him,  even,  and  that 
is  the  snail.  It'  you  have  never  made  the  ac- 
quaintance of  the  sea-snail,  let  me  beg  you  to 
do  so  at  your  earliest  convenience.  You  can 
easily  find  him  in  the  mud  at  low  tide.  Put 
him  in  a  pan  of  sea-water,  and  see  him  prome- 
nade !  Look  at  the  size  of  his  foot,  and  when 
you  have  drawn  his  portrait  alive,  e7i  prome- 
nadsy  drop  him  in  alcohol,  leave  him  there  a 
few  hours  in  his  last  sleep,  and  then  hunt  for 
his  tongue.     This  is  the  greatest  marvel  in  the 


32  ''Know  Thy  self r 

way  of  dentistry  which  has  yet  appeared.  It 
is  all  covered  with  teeth.  Only  think  how  con- 
venient !  You  will  iind  clam  and  mussel  shells 
on  the  shore,  with  little  round  holes  in  them 
which  the  snail  has  gnawed  with  this  wonder- 
ful tongue  of  his.  That's  the  way  he  gets  his 
clams  and  mussels  for  his  dinner. 

The  next  sub-kingdom  includes  the  articu- 
lated or  jointed  people,  like  lobsters,  crabs,  spi- 
ders and  insects.  They  carry  their  skeletons 
on  the  outside,  instead  of  inside,  and  move 
their  jaws  from  side  to  side,  instead  of  up 
and  down.  Their  entire  eating  apparatus  is 
very  much  more  complex  than  that  of  any 
of  the  people  previously  spoken  of,  and  they 
are  considered  "pretty  well  up  in  the  world," 
as  the  saying  is.  The  insects  are  very  airy 
people  after  they  get  their  wings.  While  they 
are  in  the  larval  stage  they  are  very  voracious, 
and  keep  their  jaws  going  most  of  the  time. 
These  jaws  are  so  hard  and  horny  that  they 
make  quite  a  loud  noise  when  they  move,  some 
of  them ;  but  after  they  evolve  from  the 
larval  to  the  winged  state  they  are  much 
more  dainty,  and  their  side-moving  jaws  are 
replaced    generally    by    a    long,    sucking   tube, 


''Know   Thy  self r  33 

which  they  plunge  into  the  flower-cups  for  the 
nectar  which  they  have  scented  from  afar. 

Last  of  all  come  the  vertebrates,  and  that  ia 
where  you  and  I  come  in.  We  all  of  us,  from 
the  fishes  to  you  and  me,  except  the  turtle, 
have  our  skeletons  out  of  sight,  and  we  all 
move  our  jaws  up  and  down  instead  of  from 
side  to  side.  More  than  this,  we  have  a  most 
elaborate  set  of  tools  with  which  to  do  our 
eating  and  digesting.  See  what  an  array  of 
them  is  found  in  the  mouths  of  all  the  higher 
vertebrates !  Kote  the  delicacy  of  the  lips  in 
the  horse,  for  instance.  The  finest  velvet  can- 
not compare  with  them  in  softness,  and  so 
keen  is  their  perceptive  sense  that  not  one 
ofiending  substance  is  allowed  to  pass  them. 
If  our  lips  did  such  faithful  service  for  us,  we 
should  be  spared  a  large  proportion  of  the  ills 
from  which  we  suffer. 

Look  now  at  your  own  teeth !  What  vari- 
ety of  form,  and  what  nicety  of  adaptation,  do 
you  find  !  The  front  ones  for  cutters,  the  next 
ones  for  tearers,  and  the  back  ones  for  grind- 
ers!  And  then  the  tongue!  "A  little  mem- 
ber," to  be  sure,  *'  but  it  boasteth  great  things," 
and  well  it  may,  for  we  should  have  a  hard 


34  ''Know   Thyself r 

time  without  it.  But  the  most  elaborate  appa- 
ratus in  the  mouth  i8  the  gh^nduhir,  by  which 
no  less  than  four  different  kinds  of  saliva  are 
supplied  for  moistening  the  food  and  fitting  it 
for  conveyance  to  the  etomach.  No  less  than 
two  or  three  pounds  a  day  of  this  fluid  are 
prepared  by  a  mouth  which  only  chews  the 
necessary  quantity  and  quality  of  food,  while 
the  mouths  that  are  forever  chewing  gum,  or 
peanuts,  or  slippery-elm,  or  tobacco,  or  any 
superfluous  substance,  prepare  very  much  more ; 
for  as  the  blood  has  to  supply  the  materials 
for  this  excess,  for  which  there  is  no  provision 
in  the  original  plan,  it  thereby  becomes  very 
much  impoverished.  By  and  by  the  results  of 
this  impoverishment  begin  to  appear  in  the 
way  of  a  thirst  which  calls  for  rum  if  it's  a 
tobacco-chewing  boy,  and  for  tea  if  its  a  gum- 
chewing  girl;  and  that's  the  way  a  good  many 
forms  of  intemperance  begin.  The  beautiful 
youth  Charmides,  with  the  fair  soul  in  the  fair 
body,  was  no  chewer  of  tobacco  ;  and  Minerva, 
the  beautiful  goddess,  was  no  tea-drinker,  for 
no  tea-drinker  ever  had  the  elegant  repose  and 
dignity   which    belong    to    her. 

But  the  main  point  to  which  I  would  espe- 


''Knoio   Thyself P  35 

cially  call  your  attention  is  the  pains  displayed 
for  moistening  the  food  without  any  help  from 
without.  If  the  Divine  Architect  of  this  temple 
in  which  we  dwell  lias  taken  such  infinite 
care,  proceeding  by  these  nice  gradations  from 
the  polyp  to  the  vertebrate,  to  supply  our 
mouths  with  thirty-two  teeth  for  chewing,  and 
four  kinds  of  saliva  for  wetting,  the  food  we 
need,  are  we  not  committing  a  positive  sin 
when  we  descend  to  the  level  of  the  alliofator 
by  tossing  the  food  past  the  teeth  as  Boon  as 
they  have  grasped  it,  and  sending  it  swim- 
ming in  ice-water  down  to  the  stomach  ? 

It  is  no  less  true  of  the  work  of  digestion 
than  it  is  of  every  other  work,  that  the  final 
success  depends  upon  the  thorough  perform- 
ance of  the  preliminary  work,  and  you  may 
be  very  sure  of  life-long  immunity  from  dys- 
pepsia if,  having  secured  the  right  kind  of 
food,  you  carefully  follow  Nature's  plan  for 
the  preparatory  work  of  the  mouth ;  while  you 
may  be  equally  sure  of  becoming  a  confirmed 
dyspeptic,  when  you  ought  to  be  in  your  prime, 
if  you  neglect  to  use  your  teeth  faithfully  on 
your  food,  and,  in  addition  to  that,  you  wash 
it  down  with  cold  water. 


36  ''K710W   Thyself r 

We  Americans  have  much  to  learn  from 
our  more  mature  neighbors  across  the  sea  in 
this  matter  of  water  drinking  at  table,  and  the 
sooner  we  banish  the  omnipresent  pitcher  of 
ice-water  from  its  central  point  there  to  its 
appropriate  place,  the  better  for  us  all,  for 
we  work  a  deal  of  mischief  by  our  intemper- 
ance in  this  matter :  first,  bj  diluting  the  gas- 
tric juice,  and  second,  by  reducing  the  temper- 
ature of  the  stomach. 

Another  way  in  which  we  invite  the  foe 
dyspepsia  to  abide  with  us  is  by  restricting 
the  free  and  easy  motion  of  the  stomach  by 
our  belts.  The  habit  of  wearing  belts  or  bands 
of  any  kind  about  the  body  has  too  long  held 
sway  over  us.  No  other  animal  could  endure 
it  without  having  its  vitality  sadly  impaired, 
just  as  ours  has  been.  And  really  there  is  no 
call  for  belts  and  bands  now,  even  by  that 
most  capricious  personage  we  call  Fashion,  for 
ehe  has  most  amiably  conformed  to  the  grow- 
ing demand  for  more  common-sense  in  the 
matter  of  women's  attire,  and  has  given  us  the 
easy- fitting  and  graceful  princesse  and  polo- 
naise styles,  which  bring  out  the  graceful  con- 
tour of  the  body  without  cutting  it  in  two  by  a 


''Know   Thyself:'  37 

belt.  The  fickle  creature  really  deserves  a  long 
credit-mark  for  thus  cooperating  with  the  hy- 
gienists  in  dispensing  with  all  bands  and  belts 
upon  any  part  of  the  body.  It  really  seems 
as  if  she  had  been  studying  Physiology  and 
Greek  art  for  a  change. 

Let  us,  then,  hear  the  conclusion  of  the 
whole  matter.  Chew  your  food  long  and  well, 
drink  no  water  with  it,  and  wear  no  bands 
round  the  body,  either  over  or  under  tlie  dress ; 
so  shall  you  never  know  dyspepsia,  provided 
you  get  proper  food  and  are  temperate  at  all 
times  and  in  all  ways.  Do  not  keep  eating  a 
thing  till  you  feel  uncomfortable,  simply  be- 
cause it  tastes  good,  else  you  will  be  where 
the  good  old  Quaker  was  of  whom  we  read  in 
Boswell's  "  Johnson."  Here  is  a  leaf  from  his 
diary : 

"Tenth  month,  IT — An  hypochondriac  ob- 
nubilation from  wind  and  indigestion. 

"  First  month,  22 — A  little  swinish  at  din- 
ner. 

"  Fourth  month,  29 — Mechanically  and  sin- 
fully dogged." 

QUESTIONS    AND    ANSWERS. 

A  few  of  many  questions  which  have  been 


38  "-Know  Thy  self r 

proffered  by  different  members  of  schools  where 
I  have  given  these  lessons  will  be  here  and 
there  introduced,  in  the  hope  that  the  answers 
may  cover  some  of  the  many  points  which 
necessarily  go  unnoticed  where  the  field  is  so 
wide. 

"Shall  we,  then,  drink  no  water?" 
There's  a  time  to  drink  as  well  as  a  time 
to  eat,  and  since  water  constitutes  three-fourths 
of  the  body,  and  since  three  or  four  pounds  of 
this  water  daily  pass  out  of  it  by  way  of  the 
lungs,  the  skin  and  the  kidneys,  it  is  evident 
that  an  equivalent  for  this  daily  loss  must  be 
provided.  ISTot  only  this,  but  the  lining  of 
the  alimentary  canal  requires  to  be  washed 
after  it  has  done  its  work,  just  as  the  mouth 
and  teeth  do ;  hence  it  follows  that  a  good 
time  to  take  a  fall  glass  of  water  is  two  or 
three  hours  after  eating.  Two  other  good 
times  are  a  half  hour  before  breakfast  and 
the  retiring  hour. 

"  And  shall  we  drink  nothing  at  table  ?" 

Drink  all  the  milk  you  can  get.      Milk   is 

the    most    perfect    form    of     food    which    we 

have    provided    for   us.      Many   will   say   that 

they  can't  drink  it,  that  it  makes  them  bilious, 


''Know  Thyself:'  39 

etc.,  etc.  This  idea  has  gained  ground  by  the 
fact  that  many  people  eat  just  as  much  solid 
food  with  the  milk  as  they  would  without  it, 
forgetting  that  the  milk  is  a  very  rich,  nutritious 
food,  and  that  it  adds  nearly  as  much  to  the 
labor  of  the  digestive  organs  as  does  so  much 
roasted  turkey.  We  are  all  of  us  quite  as 
apt  to  be  injured  by  excessive  quantities  of 
food  as  by  errors  in  quality. 

"But  shall  we  drink  no  tea  or  coffee?" 
"When  you  get  to  be  fifty,  if  you  re- 
quire a  staff  to  lean  upon  as  you  begin  the 
descent,  you  can  take  a  cup  of  properly-made 
coffee  in  the  morning;  but  be  sure  you  don't 
drink  the  boiled  stuff  which  is  left  after  the 
aroma  has  all  passed  off  into  the  kitchen.  Drink 
the  best  or  none.  The  same  with  tea.  You 
might  as  well  tan  your  stomach  with  tan-bark 
as  with  boiled  tea.  I  have  had  more  cases  of 
dyspepsia  among  servant-girls,  caused  by  boiled- 
tea  drinking  than  from  any  other  single  cause. 
During  Lent  they  fast  so  rigidly  —  those  of 
the  Komish  faith — that  they  drink  great  quan- 
tities of  strong  tea,  by  which  the  lining  of 
their  stomachs  is  converted  into  leather,  and 
they  are  rendered,  of  all  women,  most  miser- 


40  ''Know   Thy  self r 

able.  They  had  much  better  live  on  milk 
during  Lent.  It  would  certainly  be  more  eco- 
nomical than  tea  and  sugar  and  milk  and  the 
inevitable  doctor's  bills. 

"What  is  pepsine?" 

Fepsine  is  the  substance  which  every 
healthy  stomach  supplies  for  the  digestion  of 
the  albuminous  portions  of  the  food,  such  as 
milk,  meat,  eggs,  and  the  glutinous  portions 
of  grains.  "Dyspepsia"  implies  an  absence 
of  pepsine,  and  when  the  human  stomach  is  no 
longer  able  to  prepare  the  article  for  itself, 
the  chemist  has  to  supply  the  defect  by  ob- 
taining it  from  the  stomach  of  the  pig.  Hor- 
rible to  relate,  but  true !  Pig  may  be  admit- 
ted into  Christian  society  if  properly  introduced, 
but  his  credentials  are  so  questionable  and  his 
personal  habits  so  filthy  that  it  is  quite  as 
well  to  take  the  cleanly  ox  or  sheep,  as  long 
as  we  can  get  them,  and  leave  the  dirty  porker 
to  wallow  in  his  mire  and  keep  his  scrofulous 
tendencies  in  his  own  family. 

Said  the  Eev.  Adam  Clark :  "  If  I  wished 
to  offer  a  burnt-offering  to  the  Devil,  I  would 
send  him  a  pig  stuffed  with  tobacco."  And 
his    favorite    blessing    at    table   was:    "Lord, 


''Knoio   Thyself r  41 

bless  this  fruit  and  these  vegetables ;  and  if 
thou  canst  bless  under  the  gospel  what  thoa 
didst  curse  under  the  law,  bless,  we  pray  thee, 
this   swine-flesh." 

I  don't  believe  that  the  beautiful  youth 
Charmides,  "  the  fair  soul  in  the  fair  body,'' 
ever   ate   pig. 


CHAPTEK  III. 

WHAT  SHALL   WE  EAT,  AND   HOW  SHALL 
WE  COOK  IT? 

You  have  learned  from  your  studies  in 
chemistry,  or  you  will  learn,  that  of  all  the 
sixty-three  elements  which  constitute  matter, 
so  far  as  is  at  present  known,  only  four  take 
any  large  share  in  the  composition  of  the 
body,  namely:  oxygen,  hydrogen,  nitrogen,  and 
carbon.  It  is  one  of  the  most  marvelous  as 
well  as  beautiful  evidences  of  the  infinite  skill 
of  the  Creator  that  lie  has  combined  and  re- 
combined  these  few  materials  in  so  many  dif- 
ferent proportions  as  to  give  us  bone,  and 
muscle,  and  skin,  and  nerve,  and  hair,  and 
teeth,  and  all  this  nice  variety  of  tissues  which 
compel   us   to  say  we  are  ''  fearfully  and  won- 


What  to  Eat^  and  How  to  Cook  It,    43 

derfully  made."  To  these  four  prominent  ele- 
ments a  little  sulphur,  a  little  phosphorus,  a 
little  lime,  a  little  chlorine,  and  a  little  sodium 
are  added  in  the  way  of  finishing  off,  some- 
what as  the  builder  of  a  house  "made  with 
hands"  adds  the  hinges  and  the  knobs  and 
the  paint  and  varnish  to  the  already -con- 
structed frame  and  superstructure.  How  these 
few  simple  elements  are  held  together,  and 
how  the  life  comes  and  goes  to  and  from 
them  is  the  mystery  which  science  has  not 
yet  unlocked,  for  now  ''  we  see  through  a  glass, 
darkly."  Probably  Paul  spoke  thus  of  the 
obscured  glass  which  the  Greeks  used  to  soften 
the  brightness  of  their  sky  ;  but  we,  with  our 
clear- glass  lenses  in  microscope  and  telescope, 
still  see  but  dimly  through  the  curtain  of  mys- 
tery which  hides  God  from  us.  Prof.  Draper 
has  lately  found  oxygen  in  the  sun  by  means 
of  the  spectroscope,  and  Prof.  Hall  has  found 
out  by  his  telescope  that  "Mars  has  twins";  and 
60  they  have  come  so  much  nearer  to  God  and 
Xk)  his  secrets  than  we  less  able  students ;  but 
neither  the  microscope  nor  the  telescope  nor  the 
spectroscope  has  yet  made  it  possible  for  man  to 
combine   oxygen,   hydrogen,  nitrogen  and  car- 


44     What  to  Eat^  and  How  to  Cook  It. 

bon  BO  as  to  make  a  living  plant,  much  less 
a  living  animal.  But  it  is  a  great  gain  upon 
what  the  people  of  earlier  times  knew,  to  have 
proved  that  these  four  elements  are  used  in 
the  making ;  and  as  the  years  roll  on  and 
science  strides  on,  we  shall  hope  to  learn  more 
of  the  process,  being  always  assured  that  the 
more  we  study  his  works  the  nearer  we  get 
to  our  Maker. 

If  we  wish  to  know  Beethoven,  or  Men- 
delssohn, or  Raphael,  or  Phidias,  we  study 
their  works ;  and  the  more  we  get  into  the 
spirit  of  these  works,  the  nearer  we  come  to 
a  comprehension  of  the  great  artists  themselves. 
How  much  more  is  this  true  of  the. great  Artist 
of  the  Universe  ! 

But  do  you  ask  what  practical  answer  this 
knowledge  brings  us  toward  solving  the  ques- 
tion '*  What  shall  we  eat,  and  how  shall  we 
cook  it  ?" 

Let  us  see  !  The  chemists  and  the  doctors, 
working  together,  have  found  out  that  starch 
and  sugar  and  fat  contain  no  nitrogen,  but  that 
meat,  milk,  eggs  and  the  gluten  of  grains  do 
contain  it.  Now,  our  muscles  are  just  like 
what  we  call  "  lean  meat "  in  our  animal  food, 


What  to  Eat^  and  IIow  to  Cook  It.    45 

and  as  they  are  constantly  wearing  out  and  the 
ashes  being  removed,  wo  naturally  ask,  "What 
is  the  kind  of  food  which  will  supply  this 
loss  ?  We  have  the  answer  before  us :  Meat, 
milk,  eggs  and  the  gluten  of  whole  grains.  A 
diet  of  either  or  all  of  these  foods  will  give 
us  good  muscles.  That  is  a  fact  as  fixed  as 
the  multiplication-table. 

What,  then,  do  we  get  from  the  sugars, 
starches  and  fats  ?  Principally  fat  and  heat. 
The  Greenlander  relishes  his  candles  as  a  des- 
sert, probably  as  thoroughly  as  you  do  your 
sweetmeats.  It  is  the  coal  which  he  must 
have  to  keep  up  his  fires.  You  relish  your 
cakes  and  candies  and  peanuts  because  your 
bodies  call  for  enough  of  them  to  give  you  a 
layer  of  wadding  between  your  muscles  and 
your  skin,  to  fill  out  the  wrinkles  and  to  keep 
you  warm;  but  when  you  find  that  this  layer 
of  wadding  is  getting  so  thick  as  to  be  intru- 
sive, and  to  fetter  the  action  of  the  muscles; 
when  you  get  weary  on  slight  exertion,  and 
are  tempted  to  squeeze  yourself  in  tight  clothes 
to  hide  your  increasing  corporosity — then  you 
had  better  cut  off  your  sup2:)lies  of  cakes  and 
candies  and  peanuts.     So  much  for  muscle-and- 


46     What  to  £'at,  and  How  to  CooJc  It. 

fat-making  foods.  For  bones  and  nerves  and 
pure  blood  you  want  liberal  supplies  of  fruits 
and  grains  and  vegetables.  Oatmeal  and  corn- 
meal  and  wheatmeal  and  ryemeal,  each  and 
all,  will  help  to  keep  your  bones  and  nerves 
and  brain  in  good  order,  provided  you  get  the 
whole  goodness  of  them.  If  your  miller  has 
taken  off  all  the  .  outside  envelopes  of  the 
grain,  and  has  left  you  nothing  but  the  starch 
of  its  interior,  then  are  your  bones  and  teeth 
and  nerves  just  so  much  defrauded,  and  the 
pigs'  bones  and  teeth  and  nerves  enriched. 

"We  come  now  to  the  last,  but  by  no  means 
least  important,  part  of  our  question,  namely: 
"  How  shall  we  cook  it  ? " 

First  and  last  and  all  the  way  between, 
don't  fry  it  nor  make  it  into  pies  !  If  you 
have  no  other  way  to  cook  food  than  to  fry  it, 
you  had  better  take  it  raw.  I  do  not  make 
one  exception,  not  even  that  dear  delight  of 
the  New  Englander,  the  ubiquitous  doughnut. 
I  believe  this  popular  food  has  been  the  cause 
of  a  great  deal  more  dyspepsia  than  is  gener- 
ally suspected.  I  always  observe  a  great  deal 
of  eructation  of  badly-smelling  gases  by  habit- 
ual  doughnut    eaters,  and   also  by  fried-potato 


What  to  Eat,  and  How  to   Cook  It.    47 

eaters.  You  cannot  put  any  food  into  a  more 
difficult  form  for  digestion  than  by  enveloping 
it  in  a  coat  of  hot  fat.  You  might  almost  a3 
well  wrap  it  in  sole-leather. 

ISTow  for  the  pies.  I  never  see  an  apple- 
pie  without  thinking  of  the  sad  waste  of  time 
and  labor  and  substance  of  which  it  is  the 
outcome.  To  put  that  king  of  fruits,  the  ap- 
ple, all  shaven  and  shorn  of  its  gorgeous  cover- 
ing and  the  wealth  of  flavor  and  fragrance 
and  bone  food  which  go  with  it,  into  a  foul, 
pasty  mass  of  hogs'  lard  and  starch,  is  for  me 
the  literal  rendering  of  the  wise  man's  "jewel 
in  a  swine's  snout." 

Hear  Joel  Benton  talk  about  the  apple ! 
"As  iron  is  rated  among  the  metals,  so  the 
apple  ranks  among  fruits. .  . .  As  the  word  hook 
is  appropriated  as  the  fit  name  for  the  chief 
book  of  all,  so  ajp^ple  sometimes  stands  for 
fruit  in  general.  Scripture  and  geology,  which 
have  been  supposed  to  diflfer  about  some  things, 
agree  as  to  its  age,  both  placing  its  birth  just 
a  little  before  man's,  as  if  it  were  said,  'Now 
the  apple  is  born,  it  is  time  for  man  to  be, 
who  is  destined  to  eat  it.'  It  is  not  Genesis, 
but   tradition,  which   makes   it   the  apple  that 


48     What  to  Eat^  and  How  to  Cook  It. 

was  put  into  Eve's  hand,  and  afterward  into 
her  own  and  Adam's  mouth ;  but  literature 
seems  quite  at  unison  in  accepting  this  version 
of  the  matter.  The  unfortunate  fruit,  what- 
ever it  may  liave  been,  was  said  to  be  of  the 
tree  of  knowledge ;  and,  curiously  enough,  the 
apple  has  a  very  pertinent  relation  to  the  brain, 
stimulating  its  life  and  its  activity,  which  it 
docs  by  its  immense  endowment  of  phospho- 
rus, in  which  element  it  is  richer  than  anything 
else  in  the  vegetable  kingdom.  But  phospho- 
rus is  not  only  brain-supporting :  it  is  light- 
bringing;  and  must  thus  .contribute  to  knowl- 
edge ....  The  epicure  of  this  fruit  tells  you 
they  should  always  be  eaten  raw ;  and  the  sec- 
ond orthodox  rule  is,  to  *  dispense  with  the 
knife.'  Any  one,  however,  who  is  not  anx- 
ious to  have  them  as  good  as  they  can  be,  will 
do  the  next  best  thing  in  following  this  recipe, 
which  I  will  venture  to  vouch  for:  Buy  a 
sniall  tin  apple-corer ;  core  with  it  as  many 
apples  as  you  want,  without  2^^^ling  them;  set 
them  on  a  tin  dish  ;  place  this  in  a  hot  oven, 
having  first  filled  up  the  vacancies  left  by  your 
surgery  with  the  best  of  sugar.  Let  them 
bake  till  they  are  well  done.     Take  them  out, 


What  to  Eat,  and  Hoio  to  Cook  It.    49 

and  if  you  do  not  know  what  to  do  next,  call 
in  your  nearest  and  best  friend  for  further  ad- 
vice." 

All  the  cook-books  that  ever  were  made, 
or  ever  will  be,  cannot  give  a  better  recipe 
than  tliat  for  cooking  apples.  I  always  feel 
that  I've  been  swindled  when  compelled  to  ac- 
cept apple-sauce  as  a  substitute  for  the  above 
form — that  is,  apple-sauce  according  to  the  ap- 
proved pattern,  where  nil  the  peelings,  and  the 
rich  flavor  and  nutriment  which  go  with  them, 
have  gone  to  make  the  pigs  glad,  and  left  me 
to  grieve  over  that  mistaken  notion  of  the  fit- 
ness of  things  which  is  forever  sacrificing  the 
substance  for  the  show.  "But  they  don't  look 
nice !"  is  the  only  protest  which  the  misguided 
matron  offers,  and  that  is  quite  apt  to  be  a 
sufficient  reason  for  her  to  continue  to  do  just 
as  she  always  has  done.  So  she  peels  her  ap- 
ples and  rolls  them  up  in  lard  paste,  and  tells 
you  she  never  gets  time  to  go  out-doors  for 
any  fresh  air,  when,  if  she  would  only  look  at 
the  matter  without  the  spectacles  of  custom, 
ehe  could  put  her  apples  in  the  oven  and  leave 
them  to  take  care  of  themselves  while  she 
refreshed  herself  with  a  brisk  half  hour  or  so 


50      What  to  Eat^  and  How  to  Cook  It. 


away  from  her  cook -stove  and  her  flour -bar- 
rel. 

It's  just  so  with  potatoes,  alas !  What  a 
deal  of  time  is  wasted  in  peeling  them,  to  say 
nothing  of  the  valuable  nutriment  which  goes 
with  that  part  of  them  which  is  right  under 
the  outer  skin !  By  all  means,  bake  your  po- 
toes  with  their  jackets  on,  or,  if  the  exigencies 
of  the  occasion  compel  you  to  boil  them,  then 
boil  them  with  their  jackets  on,  else  a  large 
part  of  their  best  qualities  is  dissolved  and 
thrown  away  in  the  water   of  boiling. 

The  best  way  to  cook  beef  is  to  broil  it  or 
roast  it.  In  both  cases  it  should  be  subjected 
at  once  to  a  heat  intense  enough  to  form  a 
protective  crust  which  shall  retain  the  juices 
at  its  center.  Corned  beef  contains  very  little 
of  the  original  nutriment,  this  having  dissolved 
out  in  the  brine,  so  that  we  get  not  much  but 
chips.  They  may  have  an  agreeable  taste,  due 
to  the  brine,  but  it  is  best  to  partake  sparingly 
of  anything  which  simply  pleases  the  palate, 
but  which  offers  no  compensation  to  the  di- 
gestive organs  for  the  labor  they  must  bestow 
upon  it. 

If  meat  is  to  be  boiled,  it  should  be  put  at 


What  to  JEat,  and  How  to  Cook  It.     51 

once  into  boiling  water,  for  the  same  reason 
that  it  should  be  put  in  a  hot  oven  to  roast: 
BO  as  to  assist  it  to  retain  as  much  as  possible 
of  its  own  juices.  If  soup  is  the  objective 
end,  then  put  the  meat  in  cold  water  and  let  it 
gently  simmer  for  several  hours.  Thus  may  you 
get  its  substance  in  the  water  of  cooking,  but  it 
is  poor  policy  to  eat  the  fibrous  remains  of 
Boup-meat.  The  virtue  has  gone  from  them. 
Put  them  away  from  you.  Don't  attempt  to 
economize  by  making  them  into  mince -pies, 
else  it  will  cost  you  more  to  pay  your  doctor's 
bills  than  a  whole  ox,  properly  cooked,  would 
cost.  The  only  thing  which  is  fit  to  eat  in 
a  mince-pie  is  the  apple,  and  that  is  only  half 
an  apple,  deprived  of  its  skin.  I  have  seen  a 
heart-rending  sight  during  the  past  summer 
in  the  way  of  mince-pies.  It  was  a  poor  wo- 
man bending  over  the  chopping  -  bowl  and 
rolling-pin  and  cook-stove,  in  the  heat  of  mid- 
summer, for  the  sake  of  saving  (!)  some  meat 
by  putting  it  with  dried  apples  for  mince-pies. 
And  this  in  the  height  of  the  berry  season, 
and  the  poor  soul  thought  she  couldn't  afford 
to  buy  berries,  so  she  took  money  enough  to 
buy    several   quarts   of  berries,   and    threw  it 


52     What  to  Eat^  and  How  to  Cook  It. 

away  on  the  sugar  and  spice  and  greased  paste 
which  went  to  make  those  horrible  pies.  Yer- 
ily,  her  children  called  for  berries  and  she  gave 
them  stones. 

For  bread,  find  where  they  keep  flour  which 
retains  all  the  goodness  of  the  grain,  and  buy 
no  other;  then  let  the  bread  be  twenty-four 
hours  old  before  you  eat  it.  It  is  not  chemically 
done  till  then.  Hot  bread  is  so  difficult  of 
mastication  that  it  is  quite  apt  to  pass  into 
the  stomach  in  the  form  of  a  bullet,  and  is 
nearly  as  indigestible  as  that  article.  The 
perfection  of  bread  is  found  in  "  Graham  gems." 
When  properly  made,  nothing  could  be  nicer. 
When  not  properly  made,  nothing  could  be 
poorer.  A  light,  well-beaten  batter  of  the  best 
Graham  flour,  wet  with  equal  parts  of  milk 
and  water,  and  dropped  upon  hot  iron  pans 
and  baked  in  a  quick  oven,  makes  the  model 
"  Graham  gems."  The  longer  you  chew  them 
the  sweeter  they  grow  and  the  stronger  you 
grow. 

I  have  seen  girls,  when  out  on  a  tramp,  stop 
at  a  village  store  and  buy  doughnuts  with  which 
to  refresh  themselves !  The  doughnuts  made 
them  thirsty,  and  then  down  went  the  ice- water. 


W/iat  to  Eat^  and  How  to  Cook  It.    53 

Next  day  they  came  to  school  with  the  com- 
plaint that  they  had  had  a  headache  the  night 
before  and  couldn't  study,  and  so  must  be 
excused.  Xo  wonder  they  had  headache  !  The 
brain  protests  against  the  poor  blood  which  is 
conveyed  to  it  after  such  a  repast  as  that. 
There  were  plenty  of  nice,  ripe  pears  at  the 
same  store,  to  be  had  for  less  money  than  the 
miserable  greasy  doughnuts  cost.  The  pears 
would  have  left  their  brains  clear  and  free  from 
aches  or  clouds.  I  think  they  will  buy  the 
pears  next  time.     And  so  it  is  through  life  : 

"  We  slight  the  gifts  that  every  season  bears, 
And  let  them  fall  unheeded  from  our  grasp." 

Said  Milton : 

"  Not  to  know  of  things 
Remote  from  daily  use,  obscure  and  subtle, 
But  to  know  of  that  which  all  about  us  lies  in  daily 

life, 
Is  the  true  wisdom." 

Let   us   seek  the  true  wisdom,  so  may  we 
become  as  fair  and  as  strong  as  Minerva! 


CHAPTEE  lY. 

THE  HEART. 

The  heart,  '^  that  little  three-cornered  expo- 
nent of  our  hopes  and  fears ....  What  authority 
we  have  in  history  or  mythology  for  placing 
the  headquarters  of  god  Cupid  in  this  anatom- 
ical seat,  rather  than  in  any  other,  is  not  very 
clear,  but  we  have  it,  and  it  will  serve  as  well 
as  any  other.  Else  we  might  easily  imagine, 
upon  some  other  system  which  might  have 
prevailed,  for  anything  our  pathology  knows 
to  the  contrary,  a  lover  addressing  his  mistress, 
in  perfect  simplicity  of  feeling,  *  Madam,  my 
liver  and  my  fortune  are  entirely  at  your  dis- 
posal.' " — Chakles  Lamb. 

The  sacred  Scripture  says  the  heart  is  "  de- 
ceitful  and   desperately   wicked."     The    anato- 


The  Heart.  .     55 

mist  calls  it  "  a  hollow  muscle."  The  physiol- 
ogist calls  it  "  a  pump."  And  they  are  all 
right.  It  is  all  these  things,  and  more :  for, 
psychologically,  it  is  too  deep  for  the  human 
eye  to  comprehend,  and,  anatomically,  it  is  the 
one  essential  muscle  upon  which  the  body's 
life  depends ;  while,  physiologically,  the  integ- 
rity of  the  valves  by  which  it  is  so  aptly  called 
''  a  pump "  is  the  feather  which  may  turn  the 
scales  for  life  or  death. 

You  have  learned  from  your  studies  in 
zoology,  or,  if  you  have  not,  you  will  learn,  by 
what  marvelous  gradations  from  the  lower  to 
the  higher  forms  of  life  this  most  perfect  mech- 
anism has  been  achieved. 

Beginning  with  the  radiates,  you  will  find 
a  simple  tube  in  the  rays  of  the  star-fish,  which 
is  at  once  a  water-pipe  to  supply  the  impetus 
for  motion,  by  conveying  numberless  little 
streams  into  its  tubular  feet,  and  which  at 
the  same  time  acts  as  a  pulsatory  heart — a 
very  simple  heart,  to  be  sure,  but  one  which 
serves  its  purpose  just  as  well  as  yours  serves 
you.  The  sea-urchin  gets  a  step  or  two  higher 
and  gets  a  ring-shaped  heart  around  his  oeso- 
phagus, or  swallow-tube;  while  his  mastership 


56  The  Heart. 

the  clam,  one  of  the  princes  among  mollusks, 
actually  comes  to  the  dignity  of  a  two-cham- 
bered heart,  with  a  real  auricle  and  a  ventri- 
cle. He  is  even  more  gifted  in  the  way  of  a 
heart  than  any  of  his  more  active  friends  in 
the  sub-kingdom  of  articulates — the  crabs,  the 
lobsters,  the  moths,  and  the  butterflies,  and  all 
those  fine  people  with  their  gay  feathers;  for 
they  have  only  a  straight  tube  running  along 
their  backs.  If  you  get  a  live  clam  and  invite 
him  to  make  himself  comfortable  in  a  pan  of 
fresh  sea-water,  and  then  gently  remove  his 
left  valve,  you  can  see  his  heart  beat,  if  you 
look  in  the  right  place.  As  old  Koger  Bacon 
told  tlie  people  away  back  in  the  thirteenth 
century,  w^ien  they  asked  him  how  he  made 
his  gunpowder,  "  Take  of  saltpeter,  with  pound- 
ed carbon  and  sulphur,  and  you  will  then  make 
thunder  and  lightning,  if  you  know  how  to 
prepare  them."  So  if  you  know  how  to  look 
for  the  heart  of  a  clam,  you  will  find  it,  and 
you  can  also  count  his  pulse  beats,  as  he  is  one 
of  the  cool  and  collected  kind  of  people  who 
never  get  up  a  palpitation  of  the  heart  on  any 
slight  provocation. 

The   fislies   also   boast   of  a  two-chambered 


The  Heart.  57 

heart,  and  liis  frogship  and  his  snakeship  get 
60  far  up  in  the  ranks  as  to  have  three  rooms 
in  their  hearts.  This,  you  will  easily  see,  if 
you  study  into  the  matter,  results  in  a  mixed 
quality  of  blood,  so  that  no  one  of  these  people 
can  boast  of  any  real  "true  blue  blood,''  al- 
though they  are  of  the  race  of  vertebrates, 
each  having  a  real  backbone  all  to  himself. 
The  upper-crust  people  who  live  on  the  top 
rounds  of  the  ladder  are  obliged  to  count  them 
in,  but  they  by  no  means  put  them  on  an  equal- 
ity with  the  rest  of  the  backbones,  who  have 
four  rooms  to  their  hearts. 

If  you  have  never  seen  the  inside  of  the 
perfect  mammalian  heart,  let  me  ask  you  to  go 
and  get  one  from  your  market-man  as  soon  as 
possible.  That  of  a  pig,  a  sheep,  a  calf,  or  an 
ox  will  serve  you.  Then  take  your  physiology 
book  and  find  out  its  beauties.  You  will  see 
just  how  your  own  heart  looks,  and  you  will 
never  wonder  that  the  poets  have  said  so  much 
about  it  in  a  figurative  way. 

Let  us  now  turn  to  the  consideration  of 
what  this  little  four-chambered  "  three-cornered 
exponent  of  our  hopes  and  fears "  does  for  us. 
Into  its  right  upper  chamber,  or  "auricle,"  as 


68  The  Heart. 

it  is  called,  from  its  resemblance  in  shape  to  a 
little  ear,  as  the  word  signifies,  comes  the  liquid 
which  has  been  prepared  from  the  food  by  the 
organs  of  digestion.     The   stomach,  the   liver, 
the  pancreas,  and  the  intestinal  glands  have  all 
been  at  work  to  transform  the  bread  and  milk, 
and   the   candies   and   the   peanuts,   and,   alas ! 
the   doughnuts,  too,  into   a  fit  form   for   their 
reappearance    as  bone    and   muscle   and   brain 
and  nerve  and  all  those  complicated  fabrics  of 
which  each  of  our  bodies  is  made.     But  before 
this  liquid  result  of  so  much  work  can  appear 
in  such  high  company  it   must  report   at  the 
central   office,   the   heart.     Entering  its  "  Yor- 
hof,"  as  the  Germans  call  it,  or  vestibule,  it  is 
passed  on  through  the   most   beautiful  system 
of  gates,  called  the  tri-cuspid,  or  three-pointed 
valves,  to  the  right  lower  chamber,  or  "  ventri- 
cle ";  thence  to  the  lungs,  where  it  receives  the 
finishing  touches  in  the  way  of  exchanging  its 
carbonic  acid,  or  its  old  clothes,  for  the   life- 
giving  oxygen  which  there  awaits  its  coming, 
in  lungs  which  are  left  to  work  as  their  Maker 
intended     they     should.        Heturning     thence, 
brightened  and  vivified,  it  enters  the  left  ves- 
tibule or  auricle,   is  pumped   past   a   beautiful 


The  Heart.  59 

two-pointed  valve  from  there  to  tlie  left  ven- 
tricle, whence  it  issues  through  some  most 
delicate  half-moon-shaped  valves  into  a  large 
tube  called  the  "  aorta,"  which  there  begins 
to  send  off  branches  to  all  parts  of  the  body 
and  its  extremities,  so  that  every  tissue  may 
receive  a  supply  of  nourishment.  On  it  sweeps, 
this  life-current,  with  its  bone-food,  its  nerve- 
food,  and  its  muscle-food,  so  swiftly  that  it  gets 
back  to  the  heart,  through  the  capillaries  and 
veins,  in  twenty-five  or  thirty  seconds  from  the 
time  it  leaves  it,  bringing  a  supply  of  worn-out 
material  which  it  has  taken  in  on  its  round,  in 
exchane^e  for  the  new  goods  it  carried  out. 
"Like  the  water  flowing  through  the  Croton 
pipes,  that  carries  health  and  wealth  to  the  por- 
tals of  every  house,  and  filth  and  disease  from 
every  doorway,  the  blood,  flowing  through  the 
canals  of  the  organization,  carries  nutriment  to 
all  the  tissues  and  refuse  from  them.  Its  cur- 
rent sweeps  nourishment  in  and  waste  out." 

It  is  comparatively  an  easy  thing  to  describe 
the  circulation  of  the  blood  after  it  has  been 
shown  us,  but  it  took  centuries  of  hard  study  to 
find  it  out,  and  it  is  only  three  centuries  since 
Dr.   William   Harvey,    of  England,   who    gave 


60  The  Heart. 

to  the  world  the  true  statement  of  it,  was  born. 
For  full  three  centuries  before  Christ  and  for 
sixteen  centuries  after  him  the  wise  men  had 
been  asking  nature  to  reveal  this  wonderful 
secret  to  them.  Each  of  them  came  a  little 
nearer  to  the  truth  than  his  predecessor,  but 
the  glory  of  the  final  discovery  belongs  to 
Harvey. 

I  wish,  my  dear  girls,  that  I  might  help 
you  to  comprehend,  in  some .  slight  measure, 
the  perfectness  of  God's  plan,  as  thus  described, 
for  keeping  your  whole  bodies  supplied  with 
pure  blood,  so  that  your  cheeks  shall  always 
wear  the  rose-tint  of  health,  and  your  eyes 
always  sparkle  with  the  light  which  shines  out 
only  from  brains  which  are  fed  with  such 
blood.  '^  Polished  steel  is  not  quicker  dimmed 
b}^  tlie  breath  than  is  the  brain  affected  by 
some  abnormal  condition  of  the  blood." 

Every  headache  is  a  protest  which  the  brain 
puts  forth,  either  against  the  unclean  blood 
which  is  sent  to  it,  or  against  an  excess  of 
either  arterial  or  venous  blood.  If  you  have 
eaten  three  or  four  hot  biscuits  for  supper  and 
poured  down  one  or  two  glasses  of  cold  water, 
you  have  taken   one   way   to   get  a   headache, 


The  Heart.  61 

and  a  bad  breath  which  will  report  jou  to 
your  neighbors  next  morning.  If  you  have 
added  to  this  one  or  two  pieces  of  rich  cake, 
or  a  piece  of  mince-pie,  you  may  be  pretty  sure 
of  an  aching  head  with  troubled  dreams.  The 
brain  is  fastidious  in  its  choice  of  blood,  and 
will  not  accept  the  stuff  w^hich  comes  from 
half-digested  fried  food,  hot  biscuits  and  pies, 
without  protesting.  Eat  only  bread  Avhich  is 
twenty-four  hours  old,  chew  it  well  and  moisten 
it  only  with  your  own  saliva — given  you  for 
that  very  purpose ;  omit  the  pies,  fried  things 
and  rich  cakes,  and  your  head  will  never  ache 
because  of  dirty  blood :  certainly  not  if  you  eat 
plenty  of  apples,  either  baked  or  raw,  with 
their  skins  on.  Chew  the  skins  well  until 
you  have  extracted  all  their  virtue,  and  then 
reject  such  portions  as  may  be  too  tough  to  be 
finely  chewed.  When  you  cannot  get  apples, 
get  the  best  substitute  you  can  find.  All  kinds 
of  fresh  fruit,  such  as  the  market  supplies  at 
all  seasons — whether  oranges,  bananas,  grapes, 
peaches,  tomatoes,  berries  or  melons — are  infi- 
nitely better  blood  purifiers  than  all  the  nos- 
trums ever  concocted  for  the  ostensible  purpose 
of  efiecting  this  object;    and  when  you  cannot 


62  The  HearL 

get  the  fresh  fruits,  get  either  the  dried  or  the 
canned  ones.  Every  dollar  you  spend  for  fruits 
is  so  much  saved  in  the  way  of  doctors'  bills, 
and  every  pie  you  eat  is  as  good  as  a  prescrip- 
tion for  the  dose  of  pills  v^hich  will  be  pretty 
sure  to  follow  it.  As  for  pig-meat,  however 
served  —  whether  as  Extract  casieiie  caput 
(head-cheese),  Pulv.  Sausagiae  (sausage-powder), 
or  Infus.  Baconii  (bacon  infusion) — whoever 
eats  it  is  pretty  sure  to  pay  heavily  for  it,  un- 
less she  spends  the  next  six  or  eight  hours  out- 
doors in  active  exercise,  so  as  to  get  oxygen 
enough  to  burn  up  the  stuff.  One  may  be 
pardoned  for  eating  pig -meat  when  nothing 
else  can  be  had,  but,  as  long  as  the  markets 
abound  in  so  many  better  things,  pray  let  us 
leave  the  pig  in  his  own  mire  and  not  soil 
our  brains  with  his  foulness. 

But  the  head  may  ache,  and  often  does,  if 
it  has  too  much  blood,  even  if  it  be  of  nor- 
mal quality.  In  fact,  a  large  proportion  of  our 
aches  mean  that  the  blood  is  in  the  wrong 
place,  and  all  the  doctor  can  do  is  to  ^'  derive " 
it  from  the  aching  spot  to  one  remote  from  it 
by  the  various  ways  with  which  all  are  familiar. 
But  what  makes  it  get  into  the  wrong  place  ? 


The  Heart.  63 

Many  things  make  it.  If  you  wear  too  little 
clothing  on  the  feet  and  lower  extremities  in 
cold,  wet  weather,  the  blood  will  not  go  into 
them  to  warm  them,  but  will  take  the  easiest 
route,  to  the  head,  which  will  then  cry  out,  in 
its  agony,  "My  veins  are  full  to  bursting, 
and  I  ache  terribly."  The  same  result  will 
follow  if  the  shoes  be  tight  or  the  hose  are 
kept  in  place  by  bands  about  the  extremities. 
Any  band,  elastic  or  otherwise,  which  is  tight 
enough  to  keep  the  hose  smooth  is  tight 
enough  to  interfere  with  the  circulation  of  the 
blood.  Don't  wear  it !  There  is  a  way  of  ad- 
justing hose,  which  you  can  learn  at  any 
dress-reform  store,  wliereby  they  are  kept  per- 
fectly smooth,  and  not  a  single  blood-vessel  in 
the  whole  body  is  compressed.  It  dispenses 
with  all  bands,  and  is  thoroughly  comfortable 
and  convenient.  Get  it,  wear  it,  and  tell  all 
your  mates  to  get  it! 

The  head  may  ache,  too,  because  the  mus- 
cles are  not  exercised  enough,  and  because  it  is 
oppressed  with  the  blood  which  ought  to  be 
freely  circulating  through  them.  Some  of  you 
bend  over  your  books  too  long  at  a  time,  and 
some  of  you  sit  at  the  piano  too  long,  and  some 


64  The  Heart. 

of  you  sit  at  the  sewing-machine  too  long, 
and  your  muscles  get  pale  and  flabby  and  your 
head  gets  liot  and  heavy;  and,  too  often,  in- 
stead of  taking  the  warning  and  rushing  out 
for  a  good,  brisk  walk  in  the  open  air,  you 
make  a  bad  matter  worse  by  shutting  your- 
selves in  your  close  rooms  and  sipping  tea. 
That  is  the  poorest  possible  substitute  for  fresh 
air  and  exercise.  You  will  get  no  bloom  on 
your  cheeks  and  no  light  in  your  eyes  by 
drinking  tea,  but  you  will  grow  yellow  and 
withered,  like  the  "sere  and  yellow  leaf," 
which  has  lost  its  sources  of  nutriment.  When 
you  see  a  young  woman  whose  skin  looks  like 
old  flannel,  showing  traces  of  the  starch-box 
or  the  rouge-pot,  it  is  pretty  safe  to  infer  that 
she  gets  very  little  exercise  in  the  open  air 
and  that  she  is  a  confirmed  tea-toper.  Let  the 
tea  stay  in  China  till  you  come  to  your  fifties 
or  sixties,  and  you  may  be  sure  of  being  aa 
handsome  as  old  ladies  as  you  will  be  as  young 
•ones. 

"What  causes  varicose  veins?" 

Yaricose  veins  are  swellings  in  the  veins 
caused  by  interruptions  to  the  circulation  of 
the  venous  blood.     You  w^ill  understand,  from 


The  Heart.  6^ 

what  has  been  told  you,  that  the  blood  has  to 
flow  upward  in  the  veins  of  the  trunk  and 
lower  extremities  in  order  to  return  to  the 
heart,  and  a  little  thought  will  show  you  how 
easily  you  can  interfere  with  this  current  by 
wearing  bands  about  the  body  or  lower  ex- 
tremities. These  all-too-prevalent  bands  are  a 
common  cause  of  varicose  veins.  Habitual 
standing   is   another   cause. 

"  What  causes  palpitation  of  the  heart  ?" 
In  the  majority  of  cases,  indigestion  is  the 
cause.  The  heart  is  located  directly  above  the 
stomach,  with  only  the  diaphragm  between 
them.  The  diaphragm  is  the  muscular  floor 
of  the  chest.  If  the  stomach  becomes  distended 
with  the  gases  of  indigestion,  it  crowds  the 
diaphragm  up  against  the  heart.  The  heart 
then  utters  its  protest  against  the  intrusion  by 
a  more  rapid  beating,  for  it  has  no  room  to 
spare  in  a  chest  which  is  held  still  by  bones 
and  bands  and  steels,  no  matter  how  loose 
they  may  be.  There  can  be  no  natural  or 
free  motion  for  ribs  arid  muscles  which  are 
always  worn  in  splints,  and  where  the  ribs 
and  their  muscles  are  thus  fettered  the  heart  is 
sorely   perplexed   by   any   additional   crowding 


^66  The  Heart. 

from    below,    such   as   it   is    subjected  to  when 
digestion   is   arrested. 

"What  is  the  cause  of  cold  feet?" 
Anything  which  prevents  the  blood  from 
circulating  freely  in  the  feet  will  tend  to  keep 
them  cold.  In  addition  to  the  bands  already 
mentioned,  whether  elastic  or  otherwise,  insuf- 
iicient  exercise  in  the  open  air  is  a  common 
cause  of  cold  feet,  and  the  best  of  all  ways 
for  warming  them  is  to  take  a  brisk  walk  on 
the  sunny  side,  having  first  prepared  them  by 
putting  on  warm  hose  and  thick,  broad-soled 
and  low-heeled  shoes.  Yon  can  no  more  walk 
properly  in  thin,  narrow-soled,  high-heeled 
shoes  than  you  can  on  stilts ;  nor  can  you  get 
the  full  benefit  of  a  walk  if  you  keep  your 
arms  rolled  in  a  shawl  or  folded  in  a  muff. 
The  hands  should  be  so  protected  that  the  arms 
may  fall  naturally  by  the  side  when  walking. 
There  can  be  no  really  graceful  walking  with 
folded    arms. 

"  How   may  cold,   sweaty   feet   be  cured  V 

By   clothing   them   so   that   the  blood  may 

circulate  freely  in  them^  and  by  keeping  them 

familiar  with  clean  water  and  fresh  towels.     A 


The  Heart.  67 

good  plan  is  to  plunge  them  rapidly,  first  into 
hot  and  then  into  cold  water,  two  or  three 
times  on  retiring,  and  then  rub  them  very  dry 
with  coarse  towels. 


CHAPTEE  Y. 

HOW  WE  BREATHE. 

*'And  the  Lord  God  formed  man  of  the  dust  of  the 
ground,  and  breathed  into  his  nostrils  the  breath  of 
life;  and  man  became  a  living  soul." — Genesis  ii,  7. 

In  our  lessons  upon  the  skeleton  we  have 
learned  how  carefully  the  framework  of  the 
human  nose  is  prepared  for  the  important  part 
it  is  destined  to  take  in  the  function  of  respir- 
ation. We  have  seen  how  delicately  the  bones 
about  the  nostrils  are  turned  and  coiled  so  as 
to  increase  the  surface  over  which  the  air 
must  pass  on  its  way  to  the  lungs,  and  that 
the  result  of  this  extension  of  surface  is  the 
warming  of  the  Cold  air  to  the  proper  temper- 
ature for  its  reception  into  their  more  delicate 
cells. 


IIow  We  Breathe,  69 

If  yon  look  now  at  the  entrance  to  your 
nostrils,  you  will  see  how  carefully  it  is  guarded 
by  little  hairs,  whose  office  it  is  to  sift  the  air 
and  thus  render  it  still  more  fit  for  its  be- 
comiDg  "the  breath  of  life."  The  lesson 
taught  us  by  Moses  in  the  above  quotation 
from  his  history  of  the  Creation,  so  sublime  in 
its  simplicity,  is  emphasized  by  the  anatomical 
study  of  the  nostrils,  and  one  is  more  and 
more  deeply  impressed  with  the  profound  in- 
sight of  the  "Man  of  God"  into  the  designs 
of  the  Creator  whose  works  he  so  faithfully 
studied.  Many  a  writer  of  books  npon  anat- 
omy and  physiology  has  since  enforced  the 
truth  that  the  nose  is  the  preparatory  organ 
of  respiration ;  that  the  perfection  of  every 
function  depends  upon  the  thoroughness  with 
which  its  initiatory  work  is  done,  and  that  all 
the  higher  orders  of  animal  life  breathe  their 
air,  while  frogs  and  turtles  and  their  kin  swal- 
low it ;  but  no  one  of  them  all  has  said  as 
much  on  pages  as  Moses  said  in  this  one 
brief  sentence.  Let  us  heed  the  lesson  !  Let 
us  apply  it  to  every  act  of  our  lives,  and  so, 
by  making  our  beginnings  aright,  sliall  we  en- 


70  How  We  Breathe. 

sure  that  success  which  crowns  all  work  which 
is  well  beo^un  ! 

Have  you  ever  noted  the  imperfect  breath- 
ing of  people  who,  either  from  habit  or  from 
deformity,  swallow  their  air,  instead  of  taking 
it  by  the  nostrils?  And  have  you  observed 
the  noise  they  make  about  it  \  Audible  breath- 
ing is  not  in  accordance  w4th  the  divine  plan. 
All  of  nature's  finest  processes,  like  the  growth 
of  tissues,  the  circulation  of  sap  and  blood,  and 
the  entrance  of  the  air  into  the  lungs,  are  noise- 
less. Let  the  air  enter  as  God  meant  to  have 
it,  and  it  will  enter  with  no  sound  for  the  most 
sensitive  ear  at  the  ordinary  distance  between 
individuals;  but  let  it  enter  through  a  mouth 
which  is  habitually  open,  and  the  sound  be- 
comes offensively  apparent.  "  The  worst  wheel 
squeaks  the  loudest."  Such  breathers  are  an 
annoyance  to  their  companions  by  day  and  a 
positive  nuisance  by  night.  There  would  be 
no  snoring  to  echo  through  dormitories  if  all 
breathed  as  God  meant  they  should,  and  one 
of  the  ways  to  prevent  it  is  to  hold  the  lips 
together  by  an  apparatus  recently  invented  by 
Dr.  Wyeth  for  the  purpose,  for  those  who  have 


Hoio  We  Breathe.  71 

been  allowed  to  develop  the  habit  by  the  in- 
attention of  their  nurses  in  childhood. 

You  will  notice  another  characteristic  of 
this  class  of  breathers.  They  always  seem  to 
hav^e  a  cold,  as  evinced  by  imperfect  articula- 
tion and  the  other  accompaniments  of  a  "  cold 
in  the  head."  They  generally  have  large  ton- 
sils, too,  and  in  this  condition  it  is  difficult 
to  discriminate  between  cause  and  effect,  for 
the  large  tonsils  may  have  induced  the  habit 
of  breathing  with  the  mouth  open,  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  mouth  -  breathing  may  have 
caused  the  enlargement  of  the  tonsils;  but, 
whichever  may  be  the  cause,  the  indications 
for  treatment  are  identical,  and  point  to  the 
reduction  of  the  size  of  the  tonsils. 

This  brings  us  to  the  consideration  of  the 
second  part  of  our  breathing  apparatus,  namely, 
the  throat,  at  whose  entrance  stand  the  tonsils, 
but  whose  office  is  not  yet  accurately  under- 
stood. Indeed,  Dr.  Robinson,  writing  upon 
the  subject,  goes  so  far  as  to  say,  "  Were  I 
to  make  a  man,  I  do  not  think  I  would  put 
tonsils  in  him.''  But  as  we  all  have  them,  it 
is  safe  to  conclude  that  they  are  essential,  rather 
than  superfluous,  organs.     It  is  no  less  safe  to 


72  How  ^Ye  Breathe. 

conclude  that  if  we  learn  and  obey  the  laws 
by  which  the  rest  of  the  body  is  kept  in  healthy 
action,  we  shall  not  find  them  to  be  a  source 
of  annoyance  and  discomfort. 

Let  us  look,  for  a  moment,  at  some  of  the 
other  results  incident  to  their  enlargement,  ad- 
ditional to  the  one  already  mentioned.  From 
the  throat  there  is  a  tube,  on  each  side,  which 
communicates  with  each  ear.  The  closure  of 
these  tubes  by  the  enlarged  tonsils  may  lead 
to  deafness,  and  often  does.  These  three  seri- 
ous results,  namely,  faulty  respiration,  muffled 
and  imperfect  vocalization,  and  deafness,  are 
all  common  conditions  among  mouth-breathers. 
But  a  still  more  serious  complication  comes  in 
as  a  result  of  large  tonsils  in  growing  children, 
in  that  the  growth  and  development  of  the 
chest  and  lungs  may  be  arrested  in  consequence 
of  the  interruption  to  complete  filling  of  the 
lungs  which  large  tonsils  necessarily  offer. 
This  may  be  a  cause  of  consumption  in  after 
life,  for  this  destroyer  finds  its  surest  victims 
among  those  who  have  small,  poorly-developed 
lungs.  Thus  you  see  what  agents  for  evil 
these  little  bodies  become  if  allowed  to  grow 
too   large. 


lloio  We  Breathe.  73 

The  question  at  once  arises,  How  shall  this 
enlargement  be  prevented  ?  Nothing  could  be 
simpler  or  more  natural  than  the  indication 
which  at  once  suggests  itself  to  the  thoughtful, 
namely,  to  guard  against  excessive  flow  of 
blood  to  the  parts  in  question  —  the  same 
point,  you  will  remember,  which  was  made 
prominent  in  our  lessons  npon  circulation. 
Keep  the  blood  in  the  right  place,  and  all  goes 
well,  provided  its  quality  is  good.  Granted 
an  excess  of  it  at  any  one  point,  and  there 
is  an  inevitable  protest  at  that  point  against 
the  intrusion. 

If,  for  want  of  proper  protection,  the  sur- 
face and  extremities  of  the  body  are  habitually 
chilled,  especially  in  childhood  and  youtli,  dur- 
ing the  whole  growing  period  of  twenty-five 
years,  ic  ia  more  than  probable  that  the  above 
conditions  will  result.  We  are  all  of  us,  young 
women  and  middle-aged  women,  and  children, 
too,  inclined  to  muffle  the  throat  too  warmly, 
thereby  inviting  the  blood  to  concentrate  at 
that  point,  when  it  ought  to  be  in  the  hands 
and  feet,  keeping  them  warm.  Furs  about  the 
neck  are  in  the  wrong  place.  Tliey  should  be 
on    the    feet    and    hands ;    and    the   yards   of 


74  TIoio  We  Breathe. 

woolen  mufflers  which  one  sees  wound  about 
the  necks  of  children  should  be  on  their  legs 
rather  than  there. 

But  the  best  of  all  ways  to  insure  one's  self 
from  sore  throat  and  swollen  tonsils  is  to  keep 
the  entire  skin  active  and  ruddy  by  making  it 
as  familiar  with  cold  water  as  the  hands  and 
face  are  wont  to  be.  Said  Miss  Jane  Porter, 
the  novelist,  to  her  brotlier,  who  was  a  physi- 
cian :  "  I  am  always  catching  cold  everywhere 
but  in  my  face.  I  wish  my  body  was  all  face." 
"  Make  it  so,"  was  his  reply.  It  is  easy  to 
form  the  habit  if  one  begins  in  early  life ;  and, 
when  it  is  formed,  the  daily  morning  ablution 
in  fresh,  cold  water  becomes  the  one  luxury 
which,  of  all  others,  we  would  least  willingly 
forego ;  while  the  perfect  exemption  from  colds 
and  sore  throats  which  it  secures  is  a  state  of 
things  which  makes  life  a  constant  joy.  Can 
you  think  of  any  greater  joy  than  to  be  always 
well  and  strong  %  To  be  able  to  say,  I  can 
go  and  come  in  all  weathers  and  at  all  times, 
because  I  never  take  cold  ! 

We  pass  now  from  the  tonsils  to  the  larynx, 
or  organ  of  vocalization.  This  is  one  of  the 
most    delicately   formed    organs   in    the    body. 


Row  We  Breathe.  75 

Through  it  comes  and  goes  every  'M)reath  of 
life,"  and  upon  its  vocal  cords  hang  the  sweet- 
est harmonies  of  life.  If  the  air  is  breathed 
through  the  nostrils,  and  by  them  warmed  and 
sifted ;  if  the  throat  and  tonsils  are  not  siir- 
charo:ed  with  blood  which  ons^ht  to  be  in  the 
feet  and  cannot  get  there  because  of  the  bands 
and  tight  shoes  in  the  way  ;  if,  in  short,  !N'a- 
ture  can  carry  the  air  through  the  larynx  in 
her  own  good  way,  there  will  be  no  discord 
there.  The  mythical  ''music  of  the  spheres" 
can  be  no  more  liarmonious  tlian  the  melody  of 
a  perfectly  correct  human  voice.  Says  George 
HacDonald :  "  A  sweet  tone  is  a  messenger  of 
God;  and  a  right  harmony  and  sequence  of 
such  is  a  little  gospel." 

There  has  never  been  a  time  when  the  hu- 
man voice  has  not  been  an  instrument  of  power, 
a  charm,  a  delight.  When  we  pass  beyond 
history  to  the  regions  of  fab-e,  we  find  that, 
among  the  gods  of  the  ancient  Greeks,  those 
were  held  in  the  highest  honor  whose  voices 
had  a  sound  potent  for  good  or  evil.  Jove, 
the  imperial  monarch  of  Olympus,  had  but  to 
direct  the  lightning  and  command  the  thunder. 


76  Hoio  We  breathe. 

Homer  wi'ites : 
"He  speaks,  and  awful  bends  his  sable  brow, 
Shakes  his  ambrosial  curls  and  gives  the  nod, 
The  stamp  of  fate  and  sanction  of  a  god. 
High  Heaven,  with  trembling,  the  dread  signal  takes, 
And  all  Olympus  to  the  center  shakes." 

Of  the  nine  muses,  six  reached  gods  and 
mortals  through  the  voice;  and  to  Calliope, 
the  muse  of  eloquence  and  poetry,  was  given 
the  precedence. 

If  we  put  faith  in  the  grand  opening  of 
biblical  history,  it  was  the  voice  of  the  serpent 
that  beguiled  Eve ;  and  it  was  the  soft  voice  of 
the  first  mother  that,  falling  upon  the  ear  and 
heart  of  Adam,  betrayed  him  to  his  undoing; 
and,  whether  we  accept  the  narrative  literally 
or  as  an  allegory,  a  hush  falls  upon  the  spirit 
as  we  read  of  the  voice  of  the  Lord  God  in 
the  garden,  calling  upon  the  man  and  saying, 
"Where  art  thou?" 

Jubal  was  the  father  of  those  who  played 
upon  the  harp,  and  there  is  little  doubt  that 
the  first  musical  instruments,  as  are  all  later 
ones,  were  but  feeble  attempts  to  imitate  the 
notes  given  forth  by  the  human  larynx,  or  to 
accompany  the  songs  of  joy  and  praise  of  the 
people. 


Hovj  We  Breathe.  YT 

Miriam  sang,  after  the  passage  of  the  Ked 
Sea,  those  magnificent  words  which  form  most 
thrilling  passages  in  our  sacred  music  and  or- 
atorio, "  Sing  ye  to  the  Lord,  for  he  hath 
triumphed  gloriously  I "  and  Hebrew  history, 
full  of  war  and  bloodshed,  of  idol  worship  and 
sin,  as  it  is,  is  more  than  redeemied  by  Hebrew 
poetry.  Nay,  if  we  go  from  Earth  to  the  Be- 
yond, we  find  the  poets  and  seers,  whose  fan- 
cies paint  its  attractions  for  mortals,  as  in  the 
vision  of  John,  telling  us  of  ten  thousand  times 
ten  thousand  surrounding  the  throne,  with 
voices  and  harps  attuned  to  the  majestic  melo- 
dies of  the  skies. 

But  if  we  fail  to  conceive,  with  our  limited 
faculties,  of  celestial  sounds,  and  listen  only  to 
mortal  tones,  we  shall  have  the  fullness  and 
the  glory  of  the  human  voice  revealed  to  us 
even  more  forcibly  than  by  any  flight  of  the 
imagination.  We  know  its  compass,  we  ac- 
knowledge its  power,  we  listen  with  rapture  to 
its  melodious  utterances,  we  feei  in  our  thrilled 
hearts  its  touching  tenderness. 

The  capacity  of  the  human  voice  is  beyond 
that  of  all  the  musical  instruments  ever  in- 
vented.    In    its    tones    we    can   read  the    mind 


78  How  We  Breathe. 

of  the  speaker,  without  seeing  his  face.  Hope, 
fear,  anger,  revenge,  love,  hatred,  despair,  are 
told  -with  unerring  directness. 

The  voice  of  Parepa  brought  adoring  thou- 
sands to  her  feet.  Woman,  through  her  words 
of  love  and  tenderness,  has  exercised  a  greater 
power  over  the  race  than  have  all  the  mon- 
archs,  backed  by  all  the  armies,  of  the  world. 

In  sickness,  her  tones  of  tender  sympathy 
are  often  more  efficacious  than  medicine ;  and 
the  strong  man,  brought  low  by  suffering,  and 
the  restless  inlant  are  alike  soothed  to  slumber 
by  a  woman's  low  voice. 

There  is  no  characteristic  in  a  mother,  a 
teacher  or  a  nurse  which  is  more  readily  caught 
up  and  echoed  than  the  habitual  tone  of  her 
voice.  A  screaming,  scolding,  harsh -voiced 
mother  or  teacher  will  be  very  sure  to  find 
her  own  tones  reflected  to  her  by  the  little 
ones  who  are  so  unfortunate  as  to   hear  them. 

Thackeray  says:  "The  world  is  a  looking- 
glass,  and  gives  to  each  individual  the  reflec- 
tion of  the  face  he  brings  to  it.  Smile  on  it, 
and  it  will  smile  in  return.  Frown  on  it,  and 
it  will  frown  in  return."  Children  are  no  less 
accurate  mirrors,  which  reflect,  in  tone,  manner 


How  we  Breathe,  79 

and   action    of  all   kinds,   the   habits    of    those 
whom   they   oftenest   encounter. 

The  most  delightful  school  I  ever  saw  was 
a  primary  school,  of  nearly  a  hundred  children, 
presided  over  by  one  woman,  whose  voice  was 
the  very  essence  of  gentleness.  During  a  series 
of  visits  there  I  never  heard  her  raise  her  voice 
above  the  ordinary  tones  of  conversation ;  but 
those  tones  were  exquisitely  modulated,  and 
so  clear  and  pure  that  they  reached  the  most 
distant  ears  in  all  their  purity.  The  children's 
voices  were  like  hers.  They  never  screamed 
at  her,  for  she  never  screamed  at  them.  They 
never  spoke  in  fretful  or  peevish  tones  to  her, 
for  she  never  spoke  in  any  but  cheerful  tones 
to  them.  Do  you  ask  the  secret  of  her  power 
over  them,  by  which  she  kept  them  from  rest- 
lessness and  noisiness  ?  She  loved  them,  and 
her  voice  showed  that  she  loved  them.  Added 
to  this  tender  child-love  there  was  a  self-control 
which,  above  all  else,  is  essential  to  the  control 
of  others.  She  kept  her  whole  body  subject 
to  the  dictates  of  her  reason.  She  knew  that 
she  could  do  little  in  her  chosen  profession, 

"To  teacli  the  immortal  mind,  no  mean  employ  ;" 


80  How  We  Breathe. 

unless  she  kept  her  body  in  health ;  and  she 
knew  that  her  voice  depended  upon  large  lung8 
for  its  power,  its  sweetness  and  its  endurance. 
So  she  gave  her  lungs  the  largest  liberty,  in 
ways  which  you  shall  hear. 


CHAPTER  YI. 

HOW  WE  BRY,ATB.B.— Continued. 

From  the  nostrils  to  the  larynx,  and  from 
the  larynx  through  the  trachea  and  bronchi  to 
the  lungs,  is  not  far,  but  "'tis  enough"  for  all 
that  Kature  would  do  for  us  there  if  she  can 
have  her  own  way.  And  how  rare  is  the 
workmanship  there  displayed  !  "We  saw,  in  our 
lesson  upon  the  circulation  of  the  blood,  by 
what  gradations  in  the  animal  scale  she  came 
to  that  perfection  of  function  which  results 
from  a  four-chambered  heart,  and  it  remains 
for  us  to  trace  out  a  no  less  striking  gradation 
up  to  the  human  lung. 

All  animals  are  classed  as  air-breathers  or 
water-breathers,  and  all  breathe  either  by  means 
of  tubes,    gills   or  lungs.     Kespiration    in    ani- 


82  Hoio  We  Breathe. 

mals,  whatever  be  its  mode  of  execution,  has 
always  the  same  object,  camelj:  the  exchange 
of  carbonic  acid,  or  waste  product  of  tissue 
w^ear,  for  oxygen.  The  earth,  the  air  and  the 
water  are  each  and  all  so  rich  in  this  life- 
giving  element  that  each  and  all  can  get  the 
requisite  amount  from  their  native  element, 
whatever  that  element  be. 

The  sponges  and  coral  polyps,  and  all  those 
very  humble  little  people  who  are  so  small 
that  it  takes  a  microscope  to  find  them,  do 
not  have  any  special  apparatus  set  apart  for 
the  purpose  of  respiration,  but  they  breathe 
at  one  part  of  the  body  just  as  well  as  at  an- 
other. Certainly  a  very  convenient  arrange- 
ment, which  we  might  be  led  to  covet  under 
some  circumstances. 

The  star-fishes,  sea-urchins  and  their  rela- 
tives have  a  curious  "w^ater-pipe  system,"  by 
means  of  which  their  air  and  their  blood  and 
their  water  are  carried  round  to  them  all  at 
once.  This  plan  has  also  its  obvious  advan- 
tages; but  when  we  rise  to  the  estate  of  the 
clam  and  the  oyster,  who  live  in  "marble 
halls"  with  folding-doors,  we  find  a  great  ad- 
vance in  the  style  of  their  breathing,  in  that 


Hoxo  We  Breathe.  83 

tliej  have  very  elegantly  constructed  gills,  most 
finely  fringed,  by  means  of  which  their  blood 
comes  to  be  of  quite  a  select  quality  compared 
with  that  of  the  people  below  them,  although 
it  is  neither  blue  blood  nor  yet  red,  but  simply 
white.  The  fishes,  however,  have  the  perfec- 
tion of  water  -  breathing  apparatus,  and  you 
have  only  to  lift  the  gill-covers  of  the  next 
one  you  see  to  find  how  delicate  and  beautiful 
it  is.  You  will  find  four  or  more  strong  arches 
supporting  little  fringes  whose  component  parts 
consist  of  minute  loops  of  arteries  and  veins, 
which  meet  here  to  exchange  the  carbonic  acid 
which  has  been  picked  up  by  the  veins  all 
over  the  body  for  the  oxygen  which  the  water 
brings  to  the  waiting  arteries.  Those  arches 
are  the  gill  arches,  and  the  fringes  on  them 
are  the  gills,  and  the  gills  are  for  the  fish 
exactly  what  your  lungs  are  for  you  :  the  sine 
qua  non  of  his  existence.  Keep  his  gills  wet, 
and  life  goes  on  smoothly  for  him.  Let  them 
get  dry,  and  the  way  is  rough.  So,  if  you  can 
get  air  for  your  lungs,  life  is  a  joy;  but  close 
up  this  sole  avenue  for  your  "  breath  of  life," 
and  your  sun  must  go  down  in  darkness.  !N'ot 
so  with  the  insect  world.     They  have  air  tubes 


8i  How  We  Breathe. 

all  over  the  body.  Catch  a  grasshopper  and 
look  on  the  sides  of  his  abdomen,  and  you  will 
see  little  openings,  like  a  row  of  button-holes, 
through  which  the  air  enters  and  animates  his 
body.  Then  take  your  microscope  and  find 
the  coils  of  air-tubing  all  wound  up  in  him,  and 
you  will  understand  why  he  is  so  very  much 
alive :  because  he  gets  so  much  fresh  air.  I^o 
wonder  he  sings  all  the  time  !  Anybody  feels 
like  it  when  tlie  body  is  full  of  pure  oxygen. 
Do  you  know  the  story  of  the  grasshoppers,  as 
told  by  Plato  in  the  dialogue  called  "  Phne- 
drus"  ?     Listen  to  it : 

Socrates  is  represented  as  having  gone  out 
to  walk,  at  mid-day,  with  his  friend.  Seated 
under  a  plane-tree,  he  says:  ^'A  lover  of 
music  like  yourself  ought  surely  to  have  heard 
the  story  of  the  grasshoppers,  who  are  said 
to  have  been  human  beino-s  in  an  ao^e  before 
the  muses.  And  when  the  muses  came,  and 
song  appeared,  the}^  were  ravished  with  de- 
light, and,  singing  always,  never  tliought  of 
eating  and  drinking,  until  at  last  they  forgot, 
and  died.  And  now  they  live  again  in  the 
grasshoppers ;  and  this  is  the  return  which  the 
muses  make   to   them :    they   hunger  no    more, 


Uow  We  Breathe.  85 

neither  thirst  any  more,  but  are  always  sing- 
ing, from  the  moment  they  are  born,  and  never 
eating  or  drinking ;  and  when  they  die,  they 
go  and  inform  the  muses  who  honor  them  on 
earth.  They  win  the  love  of  Terpsichore  for 
the  dancers  by  their  report  of  them ;  of  Erato 
for  the  lovers ;  and  of  the  other  muses  for 
those  who  do  them  honor,  according  to  the 
several  ways  of  honoring  them;  of  Calliope, 
the  eldest  muse,  and  of  her  who  is  next  to  her, 
for  the  votaries  of  philosophy,  for  these  are 
the  muses  who  are  chiefly  concerned  with 
heaven  and  the  ideas,  divine  as  well  as  human, 
and  they  have  the  sweetest  utterance." 

All  insects  have  these  breathing-tubes  dis- 
tributed all  through  their  bodies.  They  are 
called  tracheae,  and  correspond  in  function  to 
the  lungs  of  the  higher  vertebrates. 

The  simplest  form  of  the  lung  of  the  verte- 
brates may  be  seen  in  the  frog.  I  wish  every 
one  of  you  would  give  herself  the  pleasure  of 
seeing  this  wonder  of  creation  at  her  first  op- 
portunity. A  toad  will  do  just  as  well  as  a 
frog.  Yon  have  only  to  put  him  in  a  bottle 
with  a  handkerchief  saturated  with  sulphuric 
ether,  and,  as  soon  as  he  is  sound  asleep,  open 


86  How  We  Breathe. 

the  skin  of  his  abdomen  with  a  sharp  knife 
or  scissors.  You  will  see  the  pretty  lungs  all 
inflated,  and  the  little  heart  beating  between 
them.  Then  cut  out  the  little  heart  before  he 
wakes,  and  he  never  will  know  that  he  has 
been  cut,  and  you  will  have  seen  just  how  one 
of  the  air-cells  of  your  lungs  looks.  Now  you 
have  only  to  imagine  cluster  after  cluster  of 
these  delicate  little  sacs,  all  opening  into  the 
bronchial  tubes,  by  the  thousand,  and  you  will 
have  a  very  good  picture  of  your  own  lungs. 
I  hope  you  will  also  realize  what  an  awfully 
wicked  thing  it  is  to  squeeze  the  lungs.  Be- 
lieve me,  my  dear  girls,  you  can  do  your  bodies 
no  greater  favor  than  to  let  your  chests  remain 
in  just  the  shape  your  Maker  left  them.  He 
knows  very  much  better  how  to  shape  them 
than  you  or  your  dressmaker  know.  He  has 
put  no  less  than  thirty-nine  bones  into  the 
walls  of  your  chests,  and  you  need  no 
more.  There  is  a  set  of  muscles  between  each 
pair  of  your  ribs,  and  a  diaphragm  at  the  bot- 
tom of  the  chest,  and  He  who  put  them  there 
mea«nt  that  they  should  be  alwa3''s  in  motion, 
from  the  time  you  draw  your  first  breath  till 
you  die,  and  whenever  you  surround  the  chest 


How  We  Breathe.  87 

with  bands  or  bones  you  do  just  what  the 
surgeon  does  for  a  broken  bone :  you  put  these 
muscles  all  in  splints  and  hold  them,  still,  and 
from  that  moment  you  are  only  half  as  much 
alive  as  you  ought  to  be. 

It  matters  not  if  you  answer  that  your 
bands  and  your  bones  are  loose.  Your  broth- 
ers do  not  have  bands  and  artificial  bones  to 
hold  them  in  shape,  and  you  have  just  as  many 
bones  as  they  have.  It  matters  not  if  you 
tell  me  that  you  cannot  hold  yourself  up  with- 
out corsets.  You  can  do  what  you  should  do, 
and  you  should  hold  up  your  own  bodies  by 
the  means  w^hich  God  has  given  you  for  that 
purpose. 

Hear  what  Canon  Kingsley  said  to  you 
in  one  of  his  best  books,  entitled  "Health 
and   Education": 

"1  suppose  you  will  all  allow  that  the 
Greeks  were,  so  far  as  we  know,  the  most 
beautiful  race  that  the  world  ever  saw.  These 
people  had  made  physical  as  well  as  intellect- 
ual education  a  science,  as  well  as  a  study. 
Their  women  practiced  graceful,  and,  in  some 
cases,  even  athletic,  exercises.  They  devel- 
oped, by  a  free  and  healthy  life,  those  figures 


88  How  We  Breathe. 

which  remain  everlasting  and  unapproachable 
models  of  human  beauty.  But  —  they  wore 
no  stays.  The  first  mention  of  stays  that  I 
have  found  is  in  the  letters  of  Synesius,  Bishop 
of  Cyrene,  on  the  Greek  coast  of  Africa,  about 
four  hundred  years  after  the   Christian  era. 

^'  He  tells  us  how,  when  he  was  shipwrecked 
on  a  remote  part  of  the  coast,  and  he  and  the 
rest  of  the  passengers  were  starving  on  cockles 
and  limpets,  there  was  among  them  a  slave- 
girl  out  of  the  far  East,  who  had  a  pinched 
wasp-waist,  such  as  you  see  on  the  old  Hindu 
sculptures,  and  such  as  you  see  on  any  street 
in  a  British  town. 

"  And  when  the  Greek  ladies  found  her 
out,  tliey  sent  for  her  from  house  to  Iioul-c,  to 
see  this  new  and  prodigious  waist,  with  which 
it  seemed  to  them  impossible  for  a  human  being 
to  breathe  or  live ;  and  they  petted  the  poor 
girl,  and  fed  her  as  they  might  a  dwarf,  till 
she  got  quite  fat  and  comfortable,  while  her 
owners  had  not  enough  to  eat.  So  strange 
and  ridiculous  seemed  our  present  fashion  to 
the  descendants  of  those  who,  centuries  be- 
fore,   had   imagined,     because    they    had    seen 


Hov)  We  Breathe,  89 

living  and  moving,  those  glorious  statues  which 
we  pretend  to  admire,  but  refuse  to  imitate. 

"It  seems  to  me  that  a  few  centuries  hence, 
when  mankind  has  learned  to  fear  God  more, 
and  therefore  to  obey  more  strictly  the  laws 
of  nature  and  of  science,  which  are  the  will  of 
God — it  seems  to  me  that  in  those  days  the 
present  fr..?M on  of  corset-wearing  will  be  looked 
back  upon  as  a  contemptible  and  barbarous 
superstition,  denoting  a  very  low  level  of  civil- 
ization in  the  people  who  practiced  it. 

"  That  for  generations  past  women  should 
have  been  in  the  habit — not  to  please  men, 
who  do  not  care  about  the  matter  as  a  point  of 
beauty,  but  simply  to  vie  with  each  other  in 
obedience  tu  a  something  called  Fashion — that 
they  should,  I  say,  have  been  in  the  habit  of 
deliberately  crushing  that  part  of  the  body 
which  should  be  specially  left  free,  contracting 
and  displacing  their  lungs,  their  heart  and  all 
the  most  vital  and  important  organs,  and  en- 
tailing thereby  disease  not  only  on  themselves, 
but  on  tlieir  children  after  them ;  that  for 
fifty  years  past  physicians  should  have  been 
telling  them  of  the  folly  of  what  they  have 
been   doing;    and  that  they  should,   as  yet,  in 


90  How  We  Breathe. 

the  great  majority  of  cases,  not  only  turn  a 
deaf  ear  to  all  warnings,  but  actually  deny  the 
oifense,  of  which  one  glance  of  the  physician 
or  of  the  sculptor,  who  knows  what  shape  the 
human  body  ought  to  be,  brings  them  in  guilty : 
this,  I  say,  is  an  instance  of — what  shall  I 
call  it?  which  deserves  the  lash,  not  merely 
of  the  satirist,  but  of  any  theologian  who  really 
believes  that  God  made  the  physical  universe. 

"  If  one  chooses  a  horse  or  a  dog,  whether 
for  strength  or  for  speed  or  for  any  useful  pur- 
pose, the  first  thing  to  be  looked  at  is  the  girth 
round  the  ribs :  the  room  for  heart  and  lungs. 
Exactly  in  proportion  to  that  will  be  the  ani- 
mal's general  healthfulness,  power  of  endur- 
ance, and  value  in  many  ways. 

"  If  you  will  look  at  eminent  orators  who 
have  attained  a  healthy  old  age,  you  will  see 
that  in  every  case  they  are  men  of  large  size 
both  in  the  lower  and  in  the  upper  part  of  the 
chest ;  men  who  had,  therefore,  a  peculiar 
power  of  using  the  diaphragm  to  fill  and  clear 
the  lungs,  and  therefore  oxygenate  the  blood 
of  the  whole  body.  Now,  it  is  just  these  lower 
ribs,  across  which  the  diaphragm  is  stretched 


How  We  Breathe.  91 

like  the  head  of  a  drum,  which  stays  contract 
to  a  minimum. 

"If  you  advised  the  owners  of  horses  and 
hounds  to  put  them  into  stays  in  order  to 
increase  their  beauty,  you  would  receive  a  very 
decided  refusal.  And  if  you  advised  an  orator 
to  put  himself  into  stays,  he  would  reply  that 
to  comply  with  the  request  would  involve  the 
giving  up  of  public  work,  under  the  probable 
penalty  of  being  dead  within  the  twelvemonth. 

"  And  how  much  work  of  every  kind,  intel- 
lectual as  well  as  physical,  is  spoiled  or  hin- 
dered ;  how  many  deaths  occur  from  consump- 
tion, and  other  complaints,  which  are  the  result 
of  stays — is  known  partly  to  the  medical  men, 
who  lift  up  their  voices  in  vain,  and  fully 
known  to  Him  who  will  not  interfere  with  the 
least  of  his  own  physical  laws  to  save  human 
beings  from  the  consequences  of  their  own 
willful  folly." 

The  good  man  who  said  all  these  good 
things  to  us  has  gone  where  corsets  and  other 
wicked  things  "  cease  from  troubling,*'  but  I 
am  sure  his  blessing  rests  on  the  "dress-reform" 
of  which  I  am  going  to  tell  you  farther  on, 
and  which  enables  you  to  look  your  very  pret- 


92  How  We  Breathe. 

tiest,  while  it,  at  the  same  time,  leaves  your 
chest  free  to  expand  to  its  -uttermost. 

And  now,  in  reply  to  your  questions  about 
catarrh  and  colds,  and  so  on,  I  have  only  to 
say,  as  I  liave  already  done :  Keep  the  blood  in 
the  right  place,  and  leave  all  its  channels  un- 
fettered by  any  bands ;  give  the  lungs  the 
largest  liberty ;  keep  the  skin  of  the  whole 
body  active  and  familiar  with  fresh  air  and 
cold  water ;  do  not  muffle  the  neck  too  much, 
but  be  very  sure  that  the  feet  are  so  clad  that 
they  are  always  warm.  Catarrh  in  the  head 
and  cold  feet  always  go  together.  Keep  the 
feet  warm  and  dry,  and  you  cannot  have  catarrh. 
Do  not  expect  to  cure  a  catarrh  by  snuifs  or 
any  patent  nostrum.  Sublata  causa^  cessat  ef- 
fect us :     The  cause  removed,  the   effect  ceases. 

Above  all  things,  avoid  going  to  sit,  stand 
or  lie  in  a  cool,  breezy  place  when  you  are 
w^arm  from  active  exercise.  That  is  a  sure  way 
to  catch  the  "death  cold."  Do  not  stand  by 
open  windows  or  open  doors  when  the  air  of 
the  house  is  warmer  than  that  out.  You  are 
subjected  to  a  strong  draft  which  is  sure  to 
result  in  a  "cold."  Do  not  stop  to  talk  in 
the  doorway  when  parting  from   a  friend.     Say 


How  We  Breathe.  93 

what  you  have  to  say  in  the  house,  and,  when 
you  get  to  the  door,  go  on  your  way  at  once. 

Do  not  arrest  a  friend  on  a  windy  corner 
when  walking,  for  a  five  minutes'  chat.  You 
may  both  get  chilled  fatally.  Rather  turn  and 
walk  in  your  friend's  direction  till  your  chat  is 
over. 

Do  not  throw  off  your  wraps  too  suddenly 
when  coming  in  warm  with  exercise,  but  ''let 
your  moderation  be  known  to  all." 

Do  not  talk  much  when  walking;  in  a  cold, 
frosty  air,  but  keep  the  mouth  closed,  that  tlio 
air  may  be  warmed  by  the  nostrils. 

Avoid  very  hot  rooms,  with  the  moisture 
all  dried  out  of  the  air.  Have  a  thermometer, 
and  never  tolerate  a  temperature  above  sixty- 
eight  or  seventy  Fahrenheit. 

Change  the  air  of  your  room  every  hour. 
An  hour  is  long  enough  to  remain  in  one 
position  or  in  one  room  without  change.  ^STever 
Bit,  eat  or  sleep  in  a  north  room  if  you  can 
help  it.  The  north  side  of  the  house  belongs 
to  the  refrigerator  and  the  store-room..  Let 
the  sun  shine  into  all  your  rooms  as  much  as 
possible.  You  had  better  have  faded  carpets 
than   faded   faces.     Be   out   doors  two  hour^  a 


9J:  Hoxo  We  Breathe. 

day  at  the  very  least,  and  in  fine  weather  let 
it  be  three  or  four.  There  is  always  some- 
thing to  go  out  for.  Every  page  of  Nature's 
story-book  is  full  of  interest  to  her  who  will 
read  it.  The  stones  are  always  there  to  tell 
their  sermons ;  the  everlasting  hills,  "  whence 
Cometh  our  help,"  are  always  there  to  remind 
us  that  there  is  too  much  grandeur  in  Nature 
for  man  to  waste  his  time  on  strife  and  con- 
tention ;  and  when  the  glad  spring,  summer 
and  autumn  days  come,  what  a  joy  there  is  in 
studying  the  flowers,  the  ferns,  the  butterflies, 
the  birds  and  all  the  fair  living  creatures  that 
people  the  woods  and  fields. 

Not  time  !  do  you  say  ?  But,  my  dear 
child,  think  of  the  time  you  put  into  filling 
canvas  with  yarn,  in  a  vain  attempt  to  make 
something  which  looks  like  a  flower.  Had  it 
not  better  be  spent  in  studying  the  flower  it- 
self? Believe  me,  when  you  learn  to  study 
Nature's  book  with  the  loving  heart  and  eye 
of  an  Agassiz,  you  will  be  so  accustomed  to 
the  real  air  of  life  that  you  will  wonder  how 
women  can  be  content  to  stay  indoors  and 
make  "pretty  things  to  wear,"  with  a  great 
many  pounds  of  not  only  superfluous,  but  act- 


How  We  Breathe,  95 

ually  ruinous  (in  more  senses  than  one),  ruffles 
and  furbelows,  when  they  can  be  so  much 
healthier,  wealthier,  wiser  and  happier  in  sim- 
ple attire,  whose  modest  hues  are  lighted  by 
the  glow  of  cheeks  w^hose  bloom  rivals  the 
rose's,  and  by  eyes  whose  sparkle  rivals  the 
sunlight. 

Finally,  keep  your  noses  educated  up  to 
the  requisite  point  for  the  recognition  of  an 
air  unfit  for  breathing.  For  that  purpose  the 
sense  of  smell  is  given  you,  and  when  it  tells 
you  the  air  of  a  place  is  foul,  get  out  of  it  as 
quickly  as  you  can,  unless  there  is  some  way 
of  bettering  it  so  as  to  fit  it  for  respiration. 

I  once  heard  Mr.  Beecher  tell  a  crowded 
audience  in  Steinway  Hall,  New  York,  that 
there  was  no  subject  so  much  talked  about 
and  so  little  understood  as  the  subject  of  ven- 
tilation, and  that  the  air  of  that  hall  justified 
the  assertion.  He  went  on  to  say  that,  if  we 
were  asked  to  take  into  the  mouth  what  had 
been  once  ejected  from  it,  we  should  think  it 
a  very  filthy  thing ;  but  we  do  a  much  more 
filthy  thing  when  we  take  into  our  lungs  not 
only  the  breath  we  ourselves  have  ejected,  but 
that  of  our  neighbors,  too. 


96  Eoxo  We  Breathe, 

In  the  November,  1877,  number  of  the 
"Popular  Science  Monthly"  Dr.  Felix  Oswald 
has  an  interesting  paper  on  "  Modern  Troglo- 
dytes," which  you  will  do  well  to  read.  It 
will  help  to  convince  you  that  pure  air  and 
plenty  of  it,  and  large  lungs  in  which  to  re- 
ceive it,  are  the  essential  elements  of  that 
beauty  which  you  all  covet,  and  which  is  found 
only  in  healthy  bodies  which  have  retained 
that  likeness  to  their  Maker  expressed  in  the 
statement  of  the  sacred  historian,  "  So  God 
created  man  in  his  own  image." 


CHAPTER  Yll. 

THE  BRAIN  AND  KERVES. 

"Both  in  man  and  woman,  the  brain  is  the 
conservator  of  strength  and  the  prolonger  of 
life.  Poor  brains,  like  weeds,  will  grow  on 
any  soil.  The  best  brains  are  built  by  educa- 
tion in  accordance  with  the  plans  of  ISTature. 
A  Imraan  brain  is  the  "  consummate  flower  "  of 
Nature's  development  on  this  planet.  'No  per- 
fect brain  ever  crowns  an  imperfectly  developed 
body."— Dk.  Edward  H.  Clark  ("  The  Build- 
ing of  a  Brain"). 

In  our  previous  studies  we  have  considered 
the  different  organs  of  the  body  principally 
with  reference  to  their  individual  functions. 
We  come  now  to  the  consideration  of  the  man- 
ner in   which   all    these   functions   are   coordi- 


98  The  Brain  and  Nerves. 

nated  bo  that  a  perfect  harmony  of  action  is 
secured  throughout  the  entire  structure.  This 
harmony  is  the  condition  we  call  health,  and 
the  system  of  apparatus  hy  the  action  of  which 
it  is  insured  we  call  the  nervous  system. 

There  is  no  form  of  animal  life  in  which 
this  coordinator  of  animal  force  is  wanting. 
True,  its  manifestations  are  exceedingly  simple 
in  the  lower  forms,  but  it  requires  only  the 
slightest  touching  of  the  tentacles  of  the  sea- 
anemone  to  reveal  its  sensitiveness;  and  if  we 
follow  up  this  contact  with  the  microscope  and 
patience,  we  shall  find  the  little  threads  of 
nerves,  radiating  from  their  nervous  centers, 
by  whose  action  the  creature  is  able  to  so  co- 
ordinate its  sensations  with  its  motions  as  to 
withdraw  its  tentacles  from  the  point  of  con- 
tact. And  all  this  in  a  creature  which  spends 
its  whole  life  on  the  rock  where  that  life  be- 
gan, and  which  looks  so  very  much  like  a 
flower  that  it  has  received  a  flower's  name  ! 
If  we  rise  a  step  liigher,  to  the  starfish  and 
sea-urchin,  we  have  not  only  no  difficulty  in 
proving  that  they  have  nerves  and  nervous 
centers,  but  we  can  easily  find  them  without 
the  microscope.     So,  if  we  pass  from  the  radi- 


The  Brain  and  N'erves.  99 

ates  to  tlie  articulates,  we  shall  find  an  even 
more  elaborate  system  of  nerves  and  nerve- 
centers,  by  which  these  creatures  are  rendered 
extremely  sensitive,  and  also  extremely  motor, 
so  that  the  bee  and  the  butterfly  are  almost 
all  motion. 

As  we  pass  on  to  the  vertebrates  we  find, 
first,  a  notable  difference  in  the  location  of  the 
nerve-centers  as  compared  with  the  articulates, 
in  that  they  are  ranged  along  the  lower  or 
ventral  region  in  the  latter  sub-kingdom,  while 
all  the  vertebrates  have  their  spines  in  their 
backs.  Here,  too,  in  the  vertebrates  we  find, 
for  the  first  time,  a  bony  case  for  the  lodgment 
and  protection  of  nerve-centers ;  hence  they  are 
the  first  to  possess  two  quite  distinct  nervous 
systems,  namely :  the  cerebro-spinal  or  volun- 
tary system,  and  the  sympathetic  or  involuntary 
system;  the  former,  as  its  name  indicates,  pre- 
siding over  all  voluntary  action,  while  the  lat- 
ter is  confined  to  the  regulation  of  such  invol- 
untary acts  as  breathing,  the  beating  of  the 
heart,  and  the  digestion  of  food. 

There  is  quite  a  marked  difference  in  the 
tissue  composing  these  separate  systems,  as  you 
would  easily  see  on  inspection ;  and  their  differ- 


100  The  Brain  and  Werves. 

ence  in  function  is  at  once  apparent  when  you 
recall  the  ease  with  which  you  open  and  close 
your  eyelids,  as  compared  with  the  difficulty 
of  holding  your  breath  for  a  few  seconds. 

To  the  naked  eye,  the  brain  and  spinal 
cord — which  constitute  the  center  of  the  volun- 
tary system,  and  which  are  lodged  in  tlie  skull 
and-  in  the  long  canal  formed  by  the  succession 
of  openings  in  the  body  of  the  vertebras,  of 
which  we  epoke  in  an  earlier  lesson — are  com- 
posed of  two  differently  colored  substances, 
which  are  called  the  white  and  the  grey  matter. 

Examined  with  the  microscope,  this  matter 
is  made  up  of  fibers  and  cells,  and  micro- 
scopists  have  decided,  after  much  careful  study, 
that  the  cell  portion  alone  is  capable  of  gener- 
ating nerve  force.  Examined  chemically,  this 
matter  is  found  to  consist  of  more  than  three- 
fourths  water;  while  the  phosphates,  of  which 
we  spoke  in  the  opening  chapter  under  the 
designation  of  the  "  dust  of  the  earth,"  con- 
tribute largely  toward  the  remaining  fourth. 
In  this  revelation  of  chemistry,  which  is  but 
one  of  many  facts  both  useful  and  beautiful 
which  that  wonderful  science  reveals,  we  are 
fortified   in    the    assumption   contained    in   the 


The  Brain  and  N'erves.  101 

chapter  on  Foods,  that  eggs  and  the  whole 
grains,  crushed  into  edible  form,  constitute  the 
best  brain  food,  in  that  chemistry  teaches  that 
the  germs  of  all  life,  both  animal  and  vege- 
table, are  rich  in  phosphorus,  the  '*  light- 
bringer." 

If  you  look  at  the  brain  of  any  of  the 
higher  vertebrates  (and  any  market  will  fur- 
nish you  the  opportunity),  you  will  see  that 
it  is  thrown  into  convolutions.  In  this  respect 
the  brains  of  reptiles  and  of  birds  differ  from 
those  of  the  higher  vertebrates,  in  that  the 
former  have  no  convolutions,  and  this  fact  has 
much  significance  as  related -to  the  degree  of 
intelligence ;  so  that,  although  size  is  also  an 
important  factor,  the  brain  of  the  civilized  man 
being  larger  by  nearly  thirty  per  cent,  than 
the  brain  of  the  savage,  it  is  nevertheless  true 
that  anatomists  rate  intelligence  quite  as  much 
accordinoj  to  the  fineness  of  the  brain  convolu- 
tions  as  by  the  size  of  the  organ  :  quality,  not 
quantity,  being  the  rule  here  as  elsewhere. 

You  may  have  observed  heads  witli  very 
prominent  foreheads,  or  with  excessive  develop- 
ment upward,  and  possibly  have  been  led  to 
infer  that  their  possessors  had  more  than  ordi- 


102  The  Brain  and  Nerves, 

nary  intelligence,  but  it  is  probable  that  a 
closer  acquaintance  would  fail  to  confirm  your 
assumptions.  If  you  look  at  the  heads  of  any 
ol  the  Greek  statues — which  are  models,  for  all 
time,  of  the  perfect  human  form — ^ow  will  note, 
above  all  other  characteristics,  their  perfectly 
exquisite  symmetry,  while  their  size  often  pro- 
vokes the  comment  that  the  Greeks  must  have 
had  small  heads. 

We  have  spoken,  thus  far,  only  of  the 
nerve-centers.  We  have  now  to  speak  of  the 
nerves  which  have  their  origin  in  these  centers. 
From  the  brain  and  spinal  cord  there  arise 
forty-four  pairs  of  nerves,  twelve  of  them  from 
the  brain  and  thirty-two  from  the  cord.  The 
cord  itself  is  described  as  having  four  columns, 
two  anterior  and  two  posterior;  and  the  very 
interesting  fact  that  each  of  the  spinal  nerves 
has  a  double  root,  one  coming  from  an  anterior 
column  and  being  exclusively  motor  in  its 
function,  the  other  coming  from  the  posterior 
column  and  being  exclusively  sensitive  in  func- 
tion, was  never  known  until  the  present  cen- 
tury, when  Sir  Charles  Bell  discovered  it  in 
1810,  his  discovery  being  confirmed  by  Magen- 
die  in  1822.     Magendie  divided,  in  the  living 


The  J3rain  and  Iferves.  103 

animal,  first  the  posterior  roots,  and  found  tliat 
Bensibility  was  lost,  but  that  motion  remained. 
Then  he  divided  the  anterior  roots,  and  ob- 
tained reverse  effects. 

Knowing  this  fact,  the  series  of  actions 
which  goes  on  between  the  fibers  which  go  to 
make  up  any  pair  of  the  nerves  which  animate 
the  trunk  muscles  or  the  muscles  of  the  ex- 
tremities may  be  aptly  likened  to  an  exchange 
of  messages  between  two  telegraphic  stations. 
Tlie  finger,  for  instance,  touches  an  offending 
object.  The  sensitive  fibers  of  the  double- 
rooted  nerve  which  animates  the  finger  carry 
in  the  announcement  to  the  central  office,  or 
spinal  cord,  that  something  hot  is  at  the  other 
end  of  the  line,  from  whose  proximity  it  will 
be  expedient  to  withdraw.  The  order  is  at 
once  issued  to  the  motor  fibers  to  attend  to  the 
withdrawal.  This  is  the  analysis  of  every  vol- 
untary muscular  action,  and  not  only  this,  but 
the  time  occupied  in  the  transit  of  the  separate 
messages  from  without  inward  and  from  within 
outward  has  been  estimated. 

We  turn  now  from  the  spinal  nerves  to  the 
consideration  of  some  of  the  twelve  pairs  of 
cerebral   nerves  whose    origin  is  limited    to   a 


104  The  Brain  and  N'e7'ves. 

very  small  space  at  the  base  of  the  brain,  and 
to  whose  presence  we  owe  our  special  senses 
of  smell,  sight,  hearing  and  taste  in  a  similar 
way  to  that  in  which  we  derive  sensation  and 
motion  from  the  spinal  nerves. 

Says  Gerald  Massey :  "  There  are  many 
ways  in  which  the  Creator  seeks  admittance 
into  the  soul  of  man.... We  see  the  flowers 
come  to  us  every  springtide,  with  messages 
uttered  in  lovely  forms,  and  in  fragrance  which 
is  the  breath  of  the  Divine.  The  winds  blow, 
waters  roll,  the  green  leaves  dance,  the  sun- 
beams brighten,  the  colors  burnish  into  beauty, 
the  weeds  grow  in  grace,  the  skylark  mounts 
up,  and  *  deep  calleth  unto  deep,  day  unto  day 
uttereth  speech ' ;  the  springing  earth  laughs 
out  in  the  light,  the  starry  heavens  kindle  all 
aglow  with  the  glory  of  God.  ...All  nature 
reflects  in  some  faint  wise,  in  its  infinite  variety, 
the  Image  of  the  Infinite  One.  It  is  as  if  in 
man.  Nature  found  her  heart  of  hearts — -her 
true  meeting-place  for  the  Creator,  the  Crea- 
tion, the  Creature." 

And  our  five  special  senses  may  be  regarded 
as  the  several  gateways  through  which  the 
Creator  comes  into  our  souls  by  these  gracious 


The  Brain  and  N'erves,  105 

manifestations  of  Himself.  We  are  accustomed 
to  call  them  ^yq  separate  and  distinct  senses, 
yet  closer  thought  suggests  that  the  senses  of 
smell,  eight,  hearing  and  taste  are  but  so  many 
modifications  of  the  sense  of  touch,  for  do  not 
the  odorous  particles  which  float  off  from  the 
anthers  of  the  rose  impinge  upon  the  terminal 
filaments  of  the  nerve  of  smell,  and  by  this 
contact  give  proof  of  their  presence,  as  directly 
as  the  hot  stove  declares  itself  to  the  finger- 
tips through  the  general  sense  of  touch  ? 

Consider  the  sense  of  vision.  Socrates 
asked  :  "  Does  it  not  look  like  a  work  of  pre- 
science, because  the  eye  is  so  delicate,  to  have 
furnished  it  with  lids,  which  open  when  we 
want  to  see  the  light  and  close  when  we  want 
to  sleep ;  to  have  fringed  those  lids  with  lashes, 
which,  like  a  seive,  strain  the  dusty  wind  and 
keep  it  from  hurting  the  sight;  and  over  the 
eyes  to  have  placed  brows,  which,  like  eaves, 
carry  off  the  sweat  from  hurting  the  sight  V 

Let  me  entreat  you,  dear  girls,  to  think  of 
all  this  careful  provision  for  the  needs  of  your 
eyes,  when  you  are  tempted  to  hang  a  spotted 
lace  veil  before  them  to  enhance  the  color  of 
your  cheeks,  and  forbear  thus  to  profane  and 


106  The  Brain  and  Werves. 

irritate  these  most  delicate  organ s.  You  can 
hardly  offend  the  nerve  of  vision  more  seriously 
than  l)y  following  this  pernicious  fashion.  Your 
brothers  would  never  endure  such  a  thing  as  a 
veil  before  their  eyes,  but  would  protest  against 
it  with  all  possible  vigor,  and  your  eyes  are 
made  exactly  like  theirs. 

If  you  would  see  the  mechanism  of  the 
eye — which  is  but  the  servant  of  the  nerve  of 
vision,  sent  off  from  the  brain — you  can  easily 
get  the  eye  of  an  ox  from  your  market,  and 
examine  it  at  your  leisure.  Note  through  what 
a  variety  of  media  the  light  must  pass  before 
it  is  permitted  to  impinge  upon  that  delicate 
expansion  of  the  optic  nerve  which  we  call 
the  retina !  Just  as  you  saw  that  the  mouth  is 
the  preparatory  organ  for  digestion,  the  nose 
for  olfaction,  so  you  see  that  the  eye  is  the 
preparer  of  light  for  the  brain.  Treat  the  eyes 
properly,  and  they  will  remain  your  faithful 
servants  for  all  your  threescore  and  ten  years, 
provided  you  treat  the  rest  of  your  body  as 
you  should.  Abuse  them,  and  there  is  no  powder 
in  Heaven  or  on  Earth  whicli  can  prevent  you 
from  paying  the  penalty  therefor. 

Do   not   hang    veils   before   them ;    do   not 


The  Brain  and  JTervcs,  lOT 

bend  over  book  or  work,  but  sit  always  erect, 
and  raise  the  book  or  work  to  the  requisite 
height.  Use  an  inclined  book-rest  for  heavy 
books.  Raise  the  eyes  from  the  book  as  often 
as  two  or  three  times  in  the  half  hour,  for  a 
restful  look  off  into  the  distance — "  to  the  hills 
whence  cometh  our  help,"  if  possible — and  let 
the  mind  have  time  to  think  of  the  subject- 
matter.  Do  not  sit  with  the  light  opposite  the 
eyes,  whetlier  that  light  be  sun  light  or  artifi- 
cial light,  but  let  it  fall  over  the  left  shoulder, 
directly  upon  tlie  page  or  the  work.  ISTever 
read  or  study  by  artificial  light  before  break- 
fast. It  is  ruinous  to  the  eyes.  Do  not  read 
or  sew  by  twilight.  K  the  eyes  require  protec- 
tion from  sun-light  or  snow-light,  or  light  re- 
flected from  water,  or  if  the  lids  fail  ^'  to  sift 
the  dusty  wind,"  obscured  glasses  are  better 
for  the  purpose  of  protection  than  veils. 

The  sense  of  hearing  has  the  ear  for  its 
servant,  and  of  all  the  organs  of  special  sense 
this  is  the  most  complicated  and  the  most  beau- 
tiful. It  is  impossible  for  me  to  convey  to 
you,  by  words,  any  idea  of  this  most  marvelous 
structure ;  but  let  me  ask  you  to  study  a  model 
of  it  at  your  first  opportunity,  and  I  feel  sure 


108  The  Brai7i  and  Iferves. 

you  will  thus  find  your  whole  soul  so  filled 
with  reverence  for  the  Maker  of  such  a  piece 
of  workmanship  that  you  will  shrink  from  pro- 
faning its  pavilion,  as  the  external  part  is 
called,  by  punching  a  hole  in  it  for  the  exhibi- 
tion of  an  ornament,  which,  however  beautiful 
it  may  be,  is  a  desecration  to  this  "  temple  of 
the  Holy  Ghost." 

Keep  these  gateways  for  your  Lord's  in- 
coming ever  open  and  ever  in  order  ;  so  shall 
you  live  in  that  nearness  to  Him  which  the 
"pure  in  heart"  know,  "for  they  shall  see 
God."  Do  this  "  in  the  days  of  your  youth," 
so  that  when  you  reach  your  meridian  your 
brains  shall  be  richly  stored  with  the  records 
of  the  impressions  which  the  servants  of  the 
nerves  will  have  brought  in.  So  shall  your 
last  days  be  better  than  your  first. 

Dr.  Draper  tells  us  that  "  a  shadow  never 
falls  upon  a  wall  without  leaving  there  an  in- 
delible trace,  a  trace  which  might  be  made 
visible  by  resorting  to  proper  processes.  Upon 
the  walla  of  our  most  private  apartments,  where 
we  think  the  eye  of  intrusion  is  altogether 
shut  out  and  our  retirement  can  never  be  pro- 


The  Brain  and  Nerves.  109 

faned,  there  exist  the  vestiges  of  all  our  acts, 
silhouettes  of  whatever  we  have  done. 

*'  If,  after  the  eyelids  have  been  closed  for 
some  time,  as  when  we  first  awake  in  the 
morning,  we  suddenly  and  steadfastly  gaze  at 
a  brightly  illuminated  object,  and  then  quickly 
close  the  lids  again,  a  phantom  image  is  per- 
ceived in  the  indefinite  darkness  beyond  us. 
We  may  satisfy  ourselves  that  this  is  not  a 
fiction,  but  a  reality,  for  many  details  that  we 
had  not  time  to  identify  in  the  momentary 
glance  may  be  contemplated  at  our  leisure  in 
the  phantom.  We  may  thus  make  out  the  pat- 
tern of  such  an  object  as  a  lace  curtain  hanging 
in  the  window,  or  the  branches  of  a  tree  be- 
yond. By  degrees  the  image  becomes  less  and 
less  distinct;  in  a  minnte  or  two  it  has  disap- 
peared. It  seems  to  float  away  in  the  vacancy 
before  us.  If  we  attempt  to  follow  it  by  mov- 
ing the  eyeball,  it  suddenly  vanishes.  Such  a 
duration  of  impressions  on  the  retina  proves 
that  the  effect  of  external  influences  on  nerve- 
vesicles  is  not  necessarily  transitory. 

"In  this  there  is  a  correspondence  to  the 
duration,  the  emergence,  the  extinction  of  im- 
pressions on  photograjhic  preparations.     Thu?, 


110  TliQ  Brain  and  Herves, 

I  have  seen  landscapes  and  arcliitectural  views 
taken  in  Mexico,  developed,  as  artists  say, 
months  subsequently  in  New  York :  the  images 
coming  out,  after  the  long  voyage,  in  all  their 
proper  forms  and  in  all  their  proper  contrast 
of  light  and  shade.  The  photograph  had  for- 
gotten nothing.  It  had  equally  preserved  the 
contour  of  the  everlasting  mountains  and  the 
passing  smoke  of  the  bandit-fires. 

"Are  there,  then,  contained  in  the  brain 
more  permanently,  as  in  the  retina  more  tran- 
siently, the  vestiges  that  have  been  gathered 
by  the  more  sensory  organs  ?  Is  this  the  ex- 
planation of  memory — the  Mind  contemplating 
such  pictures  of  past  things  and  events  as  have 
been  committed  to  her  custody  ?  In  her  silent 
galleries  are  there  hung  micrographs  of  the 
living  and  the  dead,  of  scenes  that  we  have 
visited,  of  incidents  in  which  we  have  borne  a 
part  ?  Are  these  abiding  impressions  mere 
signal-marks,  like  the  letters  of  a  book,  which 
impart  ideas  to  the  mind  ?  or  are  they  actual 
picture-images,  inconceivably  smaller  than  those 
made  for  us  by  artists,  in  which,  by  the  aid  of 
a  microscope,  we  can  see,  in  a  space  not  bigger 


The  Brain  and  I^erves,  111 

than  a  pin-hole,  a  whole  family  group  at  a 
glance  ? 

"  The  phantom  images  of  the  retina  are  not 
perceptible  in  the  light  of  day.  Those  that 
exist  in  the  sensorium  in  like  manner  do  not 
attract  our  attention  so  long  as  the  sensory 
organs  are  in  vigorous  operation  and  occupied 
in  bringing  in  new  impressions.  But,  when 
those  organs  become  weary  or  dull,  or  when  we 
experience  hours  of  great  anxiety,  or  are  in 
twilight  reveries,  or  are  asleep,  the  latest  appa- 
ritions have  their  vividness  increased  by  the 
contrast,  and  obtrude  themselves  on  the  mind. 

"  For  the  same  reason  they  occupy  us  in 
the  delirium  of  fevers,  and  doubtless  also  in  the 
solemn  moments  of  death.  During  a  third 
part  of  our  life,  in  sleep,  we  are  withdrawn 
from  external  influences ;  hearing  and  sight  and 
the  other  senses  are  inactive ;  but  the  never- 
sleeping  Mind,  that  veiled  enchantress,  in  her 
mysterious  retirement,  looks  over  the  ambro- 
types  she  has  collected — ambrotypes,  for  they 
are  truly  unfading  impressions — and,  combining 
them  together  as  they  chance  to  occur,  con- 
structs from  them  the  panorama  of  a  dream .  .  . 

"  Savage  or  civilized,  we  carry  within  us  a 


112  The  Brain  and  Nerves. 

mechanism  which  presents  us  with  mementoes 
of  the  most  solemn  facts  with  which  we  can  be 
concerned.  It  wants  only  moments  of  repose 
or  sickness,  when  the  influence  of  external 
things  is  diminished,  to  come  into  full  play, 
and  these  are  precisely  the  moments  when  we 
are  best  prepared  for  the  truths  it  is  going 
to  suggest.  That  mechanism  is  no  respecter  of 
persons.  It  neither  permits  the  haughtiest  to 
be  free  from  the  monitions,  nor  leaves  the 
humblest  without  the  consolations,  of  a  knowl- 
edge of  another  life.  Open  to  no  opportunities 
of  being  tampered  with  by  the  designing  or 
the  interested,  requiring  no  extraneous  human 
agency  for  its  effect,  but  always  present  with 
every  man,  wherever  he  may  go,  it  marvel- 
ously  extracts  from  vestiges  of  the  impressions 
of  the  past  overwhelming  proofs  of  the  realities 
of  the  future,  and,  gathering  its  power  from 
what  would  seem  to  be  a  most  unlikely  source, 
it  insensibly  leads  us,  no  matter  where  we  may 
go,  to  a  profound  belief  in  the  immortal 
and  imperishable,  from  phantoms  which  have 
scarcely  made  their  appearance  before  they  are 
read}^  to  vanish  away." — History  of  Confiict 
JBeticeen  Science  and  Religion. 


CHAPTEE  YIII. 

KERVES  AND   NERVO  USi^TESS. 

Haying  considered  the  structure  and  func- 
tions of  the  cerebro-spinal  or  voluntary  nerve 
system,  it  remains  to  speak  more  in  detail  of 
the  great  sympathetic  or  involuntary  system, 
whose  nerve-centers,  or  ganglia,  have  no  bony 
case  for  their  lodgment,  and  in  this  respect  are 
allied  to  the  nerve-centers  of  the  radiates,  the 
mollusks  and  the  articulates,  being  distributed 
about  among  the  various  internal  organs  of  the 
four  cavities  of  the  body,  namely:  the  skull, 
the  chest,  the  abdomen  and  the  pelvis.  Be- 
sides these,  there  is  a  double  row  of  them 
lying  against  the  anterior  surface  of  the  spinal 
column,  which  might  be  compared  to  a  double 
string  of  loosely-threaded  pearls,  so  far  as  the 


114:  N'erves  and  N'ervousness, 

appearance  which  thej  present  to  the  naked 
eje  is  regarded. 

From  these  various  ganglia,  of  which  it  is 
estimated  there  are  upward  of  sixty  in  the 
heart  alone,  numberless  delicate  nerve  fila- 
ments are  given  off  from  each  internal  organ, 
which  unite  not  only  with  similar  filaments 
from  neighboring  organs,  but  also  with  fila- 
ments sent  off  from  the  cerebro-spinal  nerves; 
by  which  means  you  will  understand  that  all 
the  internal  organs  are  not  only  intimately 
associated  with  each  other,  but  also  with  the 
body  which  they  inhabit.  It  is  this  fact  which 
gives  the  name  "Great  Sympathetic"  to  this 
system.  It  is  also  called  the  "  Great  Organic," 
for  the  same  reason.  To  the  microscopist  and 
the  chemist  the  structure  of  this  system  pre- 
sents some  significant  variations  from  that  of 
the  cerebro-spinal  system ;  while  to  the  physi- 
ologist there  is  a  very  wide  variation  in  func- 
tion, in  that  a  very  much  longer  space  of  time 
is  requisite  for  conveying  impressions  to  its 
centers  than  is  required  to  convey  messages 
to  the  brain  or  spinal  cord 

Thus,  if  the  hand  or  foot  come  in  contact 
with  a  cold  or  hot  foreign  body,  the  intelligence 


N'erves  and  Nervousness,  115 

is  carried  in  to  the  brain  in  less  time  than  it 
takes  to  describe  the  process  even  to  the  extent 
here  attempted ;  but  if  we  "  catch  a  cold,"  as 
the  expression  goes,  the  sympathetic  nerve- 
centers  do  not  evince  their  recognition  of  the 
fact  until  twenty-four  hours  or  more  after  the 
occurrence  which  gave  rise  to  the  condition. 

There  is  another  very  important  fact  con^ 
nected  with  this  sympathetic  system,  namely  : 
that,  although  the  entire  weight  of  the  internal 
organs  is  only  about  one-tenth  that  of  the 
body,  yet  one-half  of  all  the  blood  of  the  body 
is  sent  to  these  organs.  I  desire  to  impress 
this  fact  upon  you  with  all  possible  emphasis, 
for  upon  its  recognition  your  comfort  depends 
in  large  measure.  You  will  remember  that  in 
the  chapter  on  "  Circulation  "  I  have  endeav- 
ored to  impress  upon  you  the  fact  tliat  physical 
suffering  generally  implies  blood  in  the  wrong 
place,  and  that  all  remedial  measures  point  to 
a  removal  of  it  to  some  place  remote  from 
the  seat  of  pain. 

Now  you  all  understand  that  the  nerves  are 
the  sentinels  which  report  this  want  of  equilib- 
rium in  the  circulation,  by  means  of  an  ache 
of  some  kind.     [Not  one  of  them  will  allow  an 


116  Werves  and  Nervousness. 

excess  of  blood  in  its  vicinity  without  protest- 
ing; therefore,  I  say  again,  as  I  have  already 
said  to  yon,  Keep  the  blood  clean  and  in  the 
right  place,  and  your  nerves  will  never  give 
you  painful  reminders  of  their  presence. 

All  painful,  inflammatory  conditions,  like 
pneumonia,  dysentery,  and  uterine,  or  ovarian, 
inflammations,  mean  this  and  nothing  more.  I 
knew  a  young  lady  who  stood  with  her  head 
out  of  an  open  window  for  five  minutes,  in 
mid -winter,  to  gossip  with  a  passer-by.  In 
twenty-four  hours  she  had  the  initiatory  chill 
of  pneumonia,  and  in  a  week  the  passer-by 
attended  her  funeral. 

I  knew  another,  who  played  croquet  on  the 
damp  ground  in  early  May,  going  directly  out 
from  a  warm  dining-room,  with  thin  shoes  and 
but  little  protection  from  a  cold  wind.  A 
violent  attack  of  dysentery  followed,  from  which 
she  barely  escaped  with  her  life. 

Neuralgia  has  been  defined  as  the  "  prayer 
of  the  nerve  for  healthy  blood,"  but  the  nerve 
prays  no  less  fervently  for  the  right  quantity 
than  for  the  right  quality  of  the  vital  fluid. 

Doubtless  many  of  you  have  felt  the  pang8 
of  neuralgia,  and  would  like    to   be   informed 


JTerves  and  Wervousness.  11 T 

how  to  avoid  their  recurrence.  Let  me  tell 
you,  then,  right  here,  that  all  the  anodyne 
lotions  and  doses  which  ever  were  or  will  be 
compounded  will  never  cure  neuralgia  as  long 
as  the  cause  of  it  remains,  and,  in  nine  cases 
out  of  ten,  the  cause  of  neuralgia  in  young 
women  is  traceable  to  want  of  equilibrium  in 
the  circulation.  The  poor  body  is  so  cramped 
and  distorted  and  loaded  down  with  the  thou- 
sand and  one  devices  for  making  it  look  "  styl- 
ish," that  the  blood  has  very  hard  work  to  get 
round  it  at  all,  to  say  nothing  of  getting  round 
on  time. 

Take  the  "corset-liver,"  for  instance,  as 
medical  students  have  learned  to  call  the  livers 
of  the  female  subjects  which  go  to  the  dissect- 
ing-room. It  is  the  rule,  rather  than  the  excep- 
tion, for  these  livers  to  be  so  deeply  indented 
where  the  ribs  have  been  crowded  against 
them  by  improperly  worn  clothing,  that  the 
wrist  may  easily  be  laid  in  the  groove.  And 
this  in  an  organ  which  is  a  mass  of  blood- 
vessels, through  which  every  particle  of  blood 
ought  to  circulate  freely  on  its  way  to  the 
heart.  Of  course,  it  cannot  get  through  the 
squeezed  portions,   and  the  inevitable  result  of 


118  Werves  and  N'ervousness. 

the  half-done  work  of  the  liver  is  an  unclean 
condition  of  the  blood,  which  utters  its  cry  by 
means  of  aching  nerves. 

"  A  sick  simpleton  asks,  What  shall  I  take  ? 
A  sick  philosopher  asks,  What  shall  I  do  ? " 

**  What  shall  I  take  for  my  nervousness?" 
i.  '.e  question  which  comes  daily,  I  might 
almosL  oay  hourly,  to  the  physician — "  that  un- 
fortunate individual,"  as  Voltaire  said,  "who 
is  hourly  expected  to  perform  a  miracle ;  name- 
ly: to  reconcile  health  with  intemperance." 

All  nervous  people  are  intemperate  in  some 
respect,  because  they  are  deficient  in  that 
fundamental  element  of  stability,  self-control. 
There  would  be  no  need  of  any  temperance- 
reform  movements  if  we  were  all  taught  the 
proper  lessons  of  self-control  in  childhood.  The 
woman  who  stimulates  herself  to  extra  exertion 
on  strong  tea  is  just  as  much  an  inebriate  as 
he  who  rolls  in  the  gutter  because  he  stimu- 
lates on  alcohol ;  and  the  young  girl  who  never 
can  pass  a  candy-store  without  indulging  in  her 
favorite  sweets  is  just  as  surely  on  the  road  to 
ruin,  of  one  kind,  as  is  the  boy  who  prides 
himself  on  being  able  to  smoke  cigars.  Tlie 
animal    appetite    is   master   in   each   case,    and 


I^erves  and  Nervousness.  119 

Belf-control  is  as  deficient  as  in  a  creeping  in- 
fant, who  lias  no  higher  thought  than  to  eat 
as  often  and  as  long  as  it  can. 

Inactivity  ranks  next  to  intemperance  as  a 
fruitful  cause  of  nervousness.  Some  of  "  our 
girls"  are  fond  enough  of  activity  of  a  certain 
kind.  They  can  dance  all  night  and  "  never 
feel  tired,"  but  they  cannot  walk  a  mile  with- 
out getting  the  back-ache ;  bo  they  will  shut 
themselves  indoors  all  day,  away  from  the  life- 
giving  air  and  sunlight,  and  read  emotional 
novels,  and  then  go  to  the  doctor  to  get  some 
valerian  for  their  nerves  !  Alas  !  poor  souls ! 
If  you  would  only  go  to  the  woods  and  to 
the  fields,  to  the  rocks  and  to  the  streams,  for 
your  books,  and  let  the  novels  lie  on  the 
shelves  till  your  mothers  tell  you  which  ones 
to  read  !  And  then  if  you  would  spend  your 
evenings  with  the  best  authors,  and  go  to  bed 
at  nine  o'clock,  and  do  your  dancing  by  sun- 
light, you  would  never  know  anything  about 
nervousness. 

"  ]S^ervousness  and  hypochondria  and  hys- 
teria were  unknown  to  the  ancients.  Perhaps 
if  we  emulate  them,  seeking  to  be  as  strong  as 
the   Romans,    as   high-minded    as   the    Greeks, 


120  JSTerves  and  Nervousness. 

they  may  in  time  l)e  miknown  to  us."  Good 
muscles  are  the  best  possible  balance  for  the 
nerves.  People  who  use  their  muscles  as  they 
should  never  have  hysteria.  Nor  yet  do  peo- 
ple who  use  their  brains  as  they  should  have 
it.  Well-directed  mental  effort  never  yet  made 
a  case  of  hysteria,  nor  of  its  relative,  insanity. 
It  is  intemperate  brain-work,  with  worry,  which 
leads  astray. 

In  the  annual  reports  of  the  Massachusetts 
Lunatic  Asylums  for  1876,  tlie  superintend- 
ents all  concurred  in  asserting  that  "there  can 
be  no  permanent  decrease  in  the  number  of 
the  insane  till  people  learn  to  control  their 
passions,  sleep  well,  and   'keep  cool.' 

"  Children  and  older  students  must  take  ex- 
ercise, and  the  robust  and  vigorous  must  be 
taken  from  cruel  exercise  and  sports,  and  put 
to  study  and  more  placid  employments.  Self- 
control  is,  above  all  things,  essential.  The 
marriages  of  those  tainted  with  insanity  should 
be  forbidden.  Brain- workers  contribute  a  very 
immaterial  percentage  to  the  total  number  of 
the  insane." 

It  is  a  perfectly  easy  matter  to  select  from 
a   school   of  young   ladies   those   who    will   be 


Nerves  and  Nervousness.  121 

liable  to  attacks  of  hysteria  at  the  test  exam- 
inations of  the  closing  weeks  of  the  term  ; 
and  they  will  not  be  those  who  have  been 
"temperate  in  all  things,"  and  faithful  not 
only  to  each  day's  mental  work,  but  faithful 
also  to  the  body,  in  which  the  mind  dwells, 
as  regards  its  daily  need  of  sunlight,  water, 
fresh  air,  and  exercise. 

The  intemperate  ones  are  they  who  will, 
under  the  spur  of  some  excitement,  walk  ten 
miles  one  day,  and  then  stay  indoors,  wrapped 
in  shawls  and  drinking  tea,  for  a  week  after  it. 
They  will  sit  up  all  night  to  "  cram "  for  an 
examination,  when  those  who  have  done  every 
day's  work  in  its  own  good  time  are  quietly 
refreshing  their  brains  for  the  test -work  by 
that  best  of  all  restorers — blessed,  balmy  sleep. 
The  "crammers"  w411  fidget  and  worry  and 
make  "great  cry,  but  little  wool,"  and  when 
they  are  informed  that  they  have  fallen  short 
of  the  mark  they  will  fly  off  into  hysteria  like 
any  poor  craz}^- brained  creature.  Then  the 
opponents  to  the  higher  education  of  women 
come  in  and  say,  "  I  told  you  bo  !  That's 
what  comes  of  cramming  girls'  heads  full  of 
Greek   and   Latin   and     science    and    all    that 


122  N'erves  and  Nervousness. 

stuff,  that's  of  no  use  to  'em !     Better  let  'em 
Btay  at  home  and  wash  dishes !" 

Quite  right !  That  kind  of  girls  had  bet- 
ter stay  at  home  and  wash  dishes  or  darn 
stockings,  so  that  they  do  it  well,  than  to 
make  such  a  pitiful  pretense  at  brain-work. 
Not  what  you  do,  but  how  you  do  it,  is  the 
test  of  your  capacity. 

"  Who  sweeps  a  room,  as  by  thy  laws, 
Makes  it  and  the  action  fine." 

The  third  factor,  in  addition  to  temperance 
and  activity^  which  is  requisite  for  healthy 
nerves  is  cleanliness^  as  applied  not  only  to 
the  body  itself,  but  also  to  the  air  which  sur- 
rounds it,  and  to  the  clothing  which  covers  it. 
It  is  asserted  by  good  medical  authority  that 
unventilated  clothing  tends  greatly  to  aggra- 
vate rheumatic  complaints  by  its  retention  of 
the  acid  excretions  of  the  skin.  All  clothing 
should  be  frequently  exposed  to  direct  sunlight, 
as  should  the  body  which  wears  it.  So  should 
all  bedclothing  and  beds  be  daily  exposed  to 
this  most  beneficent  agent  when  clouds  do  not 
obscure  it. 

It  is  considered  by  some  a  proof  of  a  very 
neat  housewife   when    all   the   beds   are   made 


Iferves  and  Nervousness.  123 

while  the  family  are  at  breakfast;  but  to  the 
phyeiologiBt  there  could  hardly  be  a  more 
repugnant  proof  of  untidineBS.  Indeed,  I  know 
of  a  lady  who  lives  in  a  fine  house  where  no 
window  is  opened  from  October  till  May.  She 
has  her  bed  made  as  soon  as  she  and  her  hus- 
band leave  it,  and  wonders  what  her  neighbors 
can  be  thinking  of  to  open  their  bedroom  win- 
dows in  midwinter.  Her  children  have  all 
died  but  one,  and  he  is  getting  ready  to  go. 
He  sleeps  till  nine  or  ten  o'clock  in  the  morn- 
ing, and  always  wakes  with  headache.  He 
goes  at  once  for  mince-pie  and  jelly- cake, 
which  are  always  at  his  command,  and  accom- 
panies them  with  sausage  and  doughnuts.  His 
breath  is  simply  horrible,  his  complexion  is 
like  that  of  a  withered  and  sickly  old  man, 
and  he  is  a  constant  sufierer  from  neuralgia 
or  headache.  The  blood  of  such  a  body  is  un- 
clean beyond  comparison,  and  "there  is  no 
health  in  it." 

Let  us  hear  what  Mr.  John  Weiss  says 
about  the  health  of  the  "  Women  of  Shake- 
speare " : 

"  Shakespeare  contrived  to  rear  a  race  of 
women   whose   physical    soimdness   w^as    unim- 


124  Nerves  and  Nervousness. 

paired.  Before  the  gymnasium  and  health  lift 
were  invented  by  the  peevish  persuasion  of 
dyspeptics  and  invalids,  who  die  by  inches  of 
fried  food,  furnace-air,  fricassees  of  high-school 
programmes,  and  ragouts  of  French  novels, 
his  women  earned  their  health  on  horseback 
in  the  broad  English  fields;  they  called  it 
down  to  them  out  of  the  sky  where  the  hawk 
struck  the  heron  and  returned  to  perch  upon 
the  wrist ;  they  came  upon  its  track  in  the 
sylvan  paths  which  the  startled  deer  extem- 
porized; they  overtook  it  in  long  stretches  of 
breezy  walks  upon  the  heathery  downs  and  in 
the  hawthorn -bounded  lanes.  The  country's 
nature  was  their  training-room,  and  its  unso- 
phisticated habits  their  masters. 

^^They  saw  the  sun  rise,  and  could  not 
afford  to  outflare  the  setting  crescent  wdth  gas- 
light streaming  from  overheated  rooms ;  nor 
did  the  stately  minuet  ravage  like  the  "  Ger- 
man "  which  is  sustained  into  the  small  hours 
upon  rations  of  beef-tea  and  various  liquors. 
They  drank  small-beer  for  breakfast,  and  knew 
the  taste  of  herrings  before  the  Turks  invaded 
the  nerves  of  Christendom  with  coffee  and  the 
Chinese  began  to  tan  its  stomach  with  the  acid 


Nerves  and  Nervousness,  125 

of  tea.... Not  one  of  Shakespeare's  women 
utters  one  line  that  is  inspired  by  any  form  of 
hysteria;  the  perfect  balance  of  the  functions 
was  not  yet  impaired,  so  that  no  nerve-center 
could  exercise  a  petty  tyranny,  nor  suggest 
the  morbid  fancies  and  curious  superfluities 
which  dedicate  so  many  late  romances  to  St. 
Vitus,  the  patron  of  spasm.  ..  .Nature  was  so 
prodigal  of  health  to  Shakespeare's  women 
that  it  overflowed  the  clay-banks  of  their  bod- 
ies, and  spread  in  a  freshet  of  gayety." 

Some  of  you  have  come  to  me  with  ques- 
tions about  headache,  about  neuralgia,  about 
nervousness,  about  sleeplessness,  and  so  on, 
and  often  you  ask  me  for  "  something  to  take^"^ 
as  if  the  doctor  had  only  to  put  the  hand  in 
the  medicine-chest  and  send  a  remedy  direct 
to  the  seat  of  pain.  My  dear  girls,  let  me  tell 
you,  once  for  all,  that  the  medicines  which 
cure  all  ills  to  whicli  flesh  is  heir  are  found 
only  in  the  advertisements.  The  true  physi- 
cian effects  more  by  his  teaching  than  by  his 
drugs. 

If  you  are  suffering  from  headache,  it  is 
probably  due  .^either  to  errors  in  diet,  or  to 
fatigue,  or   to  "  a  cold  in    the  head,"    or  to   a 


126  N'erves  and  Ifervousness, 

constitutional  tendency  to  neuralgia,  either  in- 
herited or  acquired.  In  either  case  the  remedy 
is  the  same — rest.  If  the  stomach  has  been 
offended  by  too  mneh  food  or  by  too  great 
variety  (either  will  cause  headache),  by  all 
means  give  it  rest.  Take  a  twenty-four-hour 
fast,  and  give  Nature  a  chance  to  do  her  own 
repairing.  She  is  mighty  to  prevail  if  you  let 
her  alone.  We  all  incline  to  eat  more  than  we 
need  when  the  palate  is  pleased,  and  it  is  esti- 
mated that  where  one  dies  of  starvation  ten 
die  by  overfeeding.  The  Church  of  Rome 
does  wisely  by  her  children  in  one  respect — 
as  to  the  matter  of  stated  periods  of  fasting. 
If  the  head  aches  by  reason  of  nerve-fatigue, 
there  is  no  remedy  like  sleep ;  and  the  way  to 
court  sleep  is  to  take  a  warm  foot-bath  and 
then  firmly  resolve  to  go  to  sleep.  If  the 
mind,  owing  to  the  temporary  failure  of  the 
nerve-power  to  control  its  vagaries,  tends  to 
go  roaming  about  in  sucli  crazy  fashion  as  to 
repel  the  sleepy  god,  then  is  the  time  to  sum- 
mon up  your  self-control.  You  can,  if  you  will, 
make  it  stay  at  home  and  count  sheep  going 
over  a   wall ;    or  any  other   simple   de\dce   by 


N'erves  and  J^ervousness,  127 

which  it  is  kept  steady  will  suffice  to  allay 
that  restlessness  which  drives  away  sleep. 

Boswell  tells  us  that  a  few  days  before  the 
death  of  Dr.  Johnson,  when  his  physician  ar- 
rived to  pay  his  morning  visit,  he  seemed  very 
despondent,  and  broke  out  in  the  words  of 
Shakespeare : 

**  *  Canst  thou  minister  to  a  mind  diseased; 
Pluck  from  the  memory  a  rooted  sorrow; 
Raze  out  the  written  troubles  of  the  brain; 
And,  with  some  sweet  oblivious  antidote, 
Cleanse  the  stuffed  bosom  of  that  perilous  stuff 
Which  weighs  upon  the  heart?'" 

To  which  the  physician  replied,  quoting  from 
the  same  great  poet : 

"  '  therein  the  patient 
Must  minister  to  himself.'" 

Johnson  expressed  himself  much  satisfied  with 
the  application. 

On  another  day,  when  talking  on  the  sub- 
ject of  prayer,  the  Doctor  repeated  from  Ju- 
venal :  " '  Oj'andum  est,  tU  sit  mens  sana  in 
corpora  sano.^ " 

Let  us  now  briefly  recapitulate  the  essen- 
tial conditions  for  healthy  brains  and  nerves: 
First,  be  temperate  in  all  things.  Eat  and 
drink  such  things   only   as   will   contribute   to 


128  Nerves  and  Nervousness. 

the  building  of  good  blood,  in  accordance  with 
the  instructions  already  given  you.  Let,  also, 
the  times  and  the  manner  of  taking  the  food 
be  regulated  in  accordance  with  those  instruc- 
tions. 

Be  temperate  in  your  observance  of  the 
proper  hours  of  study  and  reading.  Mental 
indigestion  is  just  as  sure  to  result  from  inor- 
dinate cramming  with  book-lore  as  is  gastric 
indigestion  sure  to  follow  food-cramming.  Be 
temperate  in  respect  to  your  hours  of  waking 
and  sleeping.  Nature  puts  her  flowers  and 
her  animals  to  sleep  along  with  the  going 
down  of  the  sun,  and  no  human  being  can 
disregard  this  example  to  the  extent  of  turning 
night  into  day  without,  sooner  or  later,  paying 
the  penalty  in  shattered  nerves.  The  best 
hours  for  sleep  are  those  between  ten  and 
two,  and  no  amount  of  sleep  prolonged  into 
the  daylight  can  compensate  for  the  loss  of 
these  precious  hours.  Be  ready  for  bed  at 
nine  o'clock  in  the  evening,  and  you  will  have 
no  disposition  to  linger  in  bed  after  the  sun 
rises. 

Be  temperate  and  systematic  in  your  ob- 
servance of  hours  of  exercise  in  the  open  air, 


Nei'ves  and  Nervousness.  129 

and  never,  under  any  circumstances,  allow 
yourselves  to  study  in  the  hour  which  should 
be  devoted  to  exercise.  Such  study  is  a  weari- 
ness to  the  flesh,  and  also  to  the  brain  and 
nerves.  You  have  probably  threescore  and  ten 
years  to  live,  if  you  live  as  you  should,  and 
there  is  time  enough  to  do  all  youi  work  well 
in  that  time.  Do  not  endeavor  to  crowd  just 
so  many  lessons  into  one  term  because  your 
companion  does  so,  but  let  each  one  be  guided 
by  her  own  individual  capacities.  Think  now 
totally  immaterial  it  will  appear  to  you  tea 
years  hence  whether  you  graduated  with  your 
own  class  or  with  the  following  one. 

Be  temperate  in  your  attention  to  personal 
adornings.  Much  valuable  time  is  wasted  upon 
personal  attire.  It  is  the  duty  of  each  one  to 
always  look  just  as  beautiful  as  she  can,  and 
no  young  girl  can  fail  to  look  beautiful  if  she 
is  in  perfect  health,  her  entire  apparel  in  per- 
fect order,  her  hair  tidily  and  ^  tastefully  ar- 
ranged, her  teeth  and  nails  perfectly  clean,  and 
her  dress  made  in  the  simplest  possible  manner 
consistent  with  the  prevailing  mode.  The 
young  girl  who  presents  herself  at  the  break- 
fast-table with  half  her  hair  in   crim ping-pins 


130  Nerves  and  Nervousness. 

and  the  other  half  in  a  frowsy  state,  her  feet 
in  shabby  shoes  or  slippers,  her  dress  half  ad- 
justed, her  collar  and  cuffs,  or  ruffles,  soiled 
and  crumpled,  and  everything  about  her  in 
disorder,  can  never  appear  beautiful  to  the 
eyes  that  behold  her  thus,  no  matter  how  much 
she  may  strive  to  adorn  herself  for  the  evening 
dissipation.  Such  a  girl  is  sure  to  be  intem- 
perate in  her  conduct  of  life. 

Secondly,  he  active  in  all  good  ways,  if  you 
would  be  free  from  neuralgia  and  nervousness. 
Idleness  is  no  less  the  parent  of  hysteria  than 
of  other  vices.  People  who  lead  busy  lives 
never  find  time  to  have  hysteria.  Be  active 
in  the  open  air.  The  sun  should  never  set  on 
the  day  when  you  have  failed  to  be  out  an 
hour  or  more  in  the  open  air,  unless  the  weather 
is  exceedingl}^  inclement.  Ladies  of  the  pres- 
ent day — thanks  to  the  great  improvement  in 
outdoor  attire — can  go  out  in  all  weathers  as 
perfectly  secure  from  ill  effects  from  exposure 
as  their  brothers  can. 

We  each  must  have  a  pound  of  oxygen  per 
day  to  consume  the  waste  matter  whose  accu- 
mulation in  our  blood  causes  neuralgia,  and  we 
cannot  get  it  even  in  the  best  ventilated  apart- 


ITerves  and  Nervousness.  131 

ments.  "We  must  go  outdoors  for  it,  or  we 
shall  pay  the  penalty  of  our  neglect  by  despond- 
ency, by  neuralgia,  by  hysteria,  and  perhaps, 
eventually,  by  insanity. 

Thirdly  and  lastly,  le  clean.  Probably 
few,  if  any,  of  you  are  negligent  of  the  use  of 
Boap  and  water  to  the  extent  of  the  ordinary 
demands  of  propriety ;  but  I  have  not  failed  to 
observe  a  disregard  of  the  fact  that  cleanliness 
consists  in  constant  vigilance.  By  this  I  do  not 
mean  that  restless  scrutiny  which  leads  fussy 
housewives  to  be  forever  armed  with  the  duster, 
the  broom  and  the  fly- chaser,  but  I  refer  to 
that  timely  forethought  which  forbids  us  ever 
to  incur  the  risk  of  leaving  any  accumulations 
of  decomposing  animal  or  vegetable  matter 
where  it  can  taint  the  air. 

I  have  seen  young  ladies  allow  the  water 
to  stand  in  vases  of  flowers  until  the  air  of  the 
room  was  foul  with  emanations  therefrom.  I 
have  noticed  that  young  ladies  who  wear  cor- 
sets often  continue  to  wear  them  unwashed  so 
long  that  the  odor  of  the  perspiration  from  the 
axillae  announces  their  presence  even  before 
one  sees  them.  These  are  but  few  of  many 
little  points  of  nicety  in  regard  to  our  personal 


132  I^erves  and  Ifervousness. 

habits  the  sum  of  which  constitutes  cleanliness. 

I  need  not  remind  you  that  if  you  engage 
in  the  occupation  of  street-sweeping  as  your 
voluntary  contribution  toward  the  sanitary  good 
of  the  city,  the  skirts  which  you  use  for  this 
purpose  should  be  changed  before  you  enter  the 
drawing-room.  You  certainly  would  not  invite 
the  man  who  is  hired  to  do  this  work  into 
your  parlor  until  he  had  first  changed  his 
clothes,  and  you  certainly  must  be  as  untidy  as 
he,  even  though  yours,  has  been  a  labor  of  love 
where  his  has  been  hired  service.  Of  course, 
it  is  evident  that  each  of  you  also  needs  to  go 
to  the  bath  as  often  as  you  engage  in  this 
occupation. 

The  last  cause  of  unclean  blood  of  which  I 
have  to  speak  is  that  very  common  condition 
of  the  alimentary  canal  known  as  obstinate 
constipation.  Ask  any  physician  what  he  or 
ehe  is  oftenest  called  upon  to  treat  among  wo- 
men who  wear  corsets,  and  who  spend  much 
time  in  sedentary,  indoor  occupations,  or  in 
idleness,  and  you  will  find  it  to  be  this.  It  is 
the  inevitable  result  of  such  lives,  and  the  foul 
breath  attending  the  condition  is  only  one  of 
many  accompaniments,  all  of  which   combine, 


Werves  and  Nervousness.  133 

at  frequent  intervals,  to  induce  an  aching  head 
or  a  violent  attack  of  neuralgia  in  some  one 
or  more  Bets  of  nerves.  Such  people  are  good 
patrons  of  patent  pills,  and  are  never  without 
them.  Uncleanness  is  stamped  upon  every  drop 
of  blood,  where  such  a  condition  prevails,  and 
the  only  blood-purifiers  for  those  who  are  thus 
afflicted  are  fresh  air,  with  laro;e  lungs  for  its 
inhalation ;  fresh  water,  with  plenty  of  clean 
towels  for  rubbing  the  skin,  and  heroic  doses 
of  muscular  exercise  in  garments  which  leave 
the  diaphragm  and  all  the  muscles  of  the  ab- 
domen as  free  to  move  as  if  the  body  had  no 
covering  but  its  own. 


CHAPTEK  IX. 

HOW  PLANTS  AND  ANIMALS  ARE  PER- 
PETUATED. 

We  have  confined  ourselves,  thus  far,  to 
the  study  of  the  individual  life  of  different  ani- 
mals. We  come  now  to  the  consideration  of 
the  mode  in  which  their  succession  is  insured. 

Your  observation  of  plant  life,  however  lim- 
ited it  may  have  been,  has  shown  you  that  no 
plant,  however  simple  its  form  or  however 
humble  its  place  on  the  pages  of  Nature's  book, 
ever  dies  without  having  first  matured  some 
seeds  or  spores  by  which  its  type  is  destined 
to  be  maintained.  Its  whole  life,  whether  it  be 
long  or  short,  points  forward  to  this,  its  ulti- 
mate office.  The  delicate  fronds  of  the  ferns 
continue  to  grow  in  strength  and  verdure  and 
beauty  until  their  spore-cases  mature,  and  then 


Plants  and  Animals.  135 

they  droop  and  wither  and  return  to  the  dust 
from  which  they  came.  So  the  violet  and  the 
anemone,  the  rose  and  the  clematis,  the  aster 
and  the  golden-rod,  and  all  the  other  bright 
attendants  of  the  swift-going  seasons,  grow  in 
grace  and  beauty  until  their  seed-cups,  or  ova- 
ries, have  matured,  and  with  that  maturing 
their  lives  begin  to  decline  and  they  to  tend 
downward  to  the  sheltering  arms  of  Mother 
Earth,  from  whose  bosom  they  sprang  and  to 
whose  bosom  they  return. 

As  with  the  plant,  so  with  the  animal. 
The  ovule  of  the  former  and  the  ovum  of  the 
latter  carry  the  potential  successors  of  the  par- 
ent life.  If  the  animal  expels  its  ovum  for  a 
period  before  the  young  is  matured,  and  keeps 
it  warm  in  a  nest  with  its  feathers,  as  the  bird 
does ;  or  leaves  it  in  the  sand,  to  be  kept  warm 
there,  like  the  turtle ;  or  leaves  it  on  the  river 
bank,  to  be  warmed  by  the  sun,  like  the  fish — ^ 
it  is  said  to  be  an  oviparous  animal:  but  if  it 
carries  its  ovum  in  a  uterus,  instead  of  laying 
it  in  a  nest,  until  its  little  one  is  ready  to 
begin  its  visible  existence,  it  is  said  to  be  a 
viviparous  animal.  All  animals  which  bear 
their    young   alive   are   also    called    mammals, 


136  Plants  arid  Animals. 

from  the  Latin  rtiawnia,  a  breast;  because 
they  all  feed  then*  young  at  the  breast.  Sorae 
mammals,  like  the  whale  and  the  seal,  live  in 
the  sea,  but  most  of  the  mammals  are  land- 
dwellers. 

Every  form  of  infant  life,  whether  that  life 
be  vegetable  or  animal,  has  its  father  and  its 
mother;  and  in  all  cases,  whether  the  infant 
life  be  that  of  a  violet,  a  bird,  or  a  baby,  its 
mother  has  the  larger  and  more  responsible 
share  in  the  work  of  its  maturing.  To  each 
one  of  you,  dear  girls,  is  assigned  this  holiest 
and  highest  of  all  human  responsibilities,  name- 
ly :  the  bearing  and  rearing  of  your  own  young, 
and  to  you  each  is  assigned  a  special  set  of 
organs,  separate  from  any  of  those  we  have  yet 
studied,  yet  associated  in  very  close  relation 
to  them  by  means  of  the  "  Great  Sympathetic  " 
nerve  system  of  which  we  have  already  spoken. 

These  organs,  in  mammals,  are  called  the 
ovaries  and  uterus.  They  are  located  in  a 
cavity  with  firm,  bony  walls,  which  w^e  call  the 
pelvis,  or  basin,  and  this  cavity  joins  the  abdo- 
men. As  the  ovary  of  the  flower  is  its  choicest 
and  most  delicate  organ,  it  is  lodged  in  the 
best-protected  part  of  the  flower,  and  the  same 


Plants  and  Animals.  137 

is  true  of  the  ovary  of  the  mammal.  Nothing 
could  be  more  completely  guarded  from  exter- 
nal injur}^  than  are  these  very  important  organs, 
as  regards  their  location,  encased  as  they  are 
in  the  firm  bones  whose  upright  edges  you  feel 
when  you  rest  the  hands  upon  the  hips.  Those 
bones  constitute  the  brim  of  the  j)^^^^Sj  or 
basin,  in  which  the  ovaries  and  uterus  are 
lodged. 

The  ovaries  are  about  the  size  and  shape 
of  an  almond,  one  on  each  side  of  the  median 
line.  They  consist  of  a  mass  of  very  small 
ova,  or  eggs,  much  too  small  to  be  seen  by  the 
naked  eye,  each  one  of  which  is  inclosed  in  a 
sac  of  its  own,  and  at  regular  intervals,  after 
you  cease  to'  be  little  girls,  one  of  these  little 
eggs  is  matured  and  escapes  from  its  sac  into 
the  uterus.  This  is  a  hollow  muscle,  about  the 
size  and  shape  of  a  Bartlett  pear,  its  longest 
diameter  being  two  and  a  half  inches.  When 
you  marry,  the  escaping  egg  is  retained  in  the 
uterus  and  kept  warm  and  alive  until  the  little 
one  inclosed  in  its  investins^  membrane  or  shell 
is  large  enough  to  live  separate  from  its  motlier. 
This  is  the  process  of  reproduction  as  carried 
on  throughout  the  entire  animal  world. 


138  Plants  and  Animals, 

The  proviBions  for  its  maintenance  are  no 
less  complete,  nor  any  less  adequate  for  the 
entire  fulfillment  of  the  work  int-ended,  than 
are  the  provisions  for  digestion,  circulation  and 
respiration,  as  already  detailed.  There  is  no 
more  reason  for  your  being  sickly  because  this 
high  privilege  of  maternity  is  accorded  you  than 
there  is  reason  for  the  female  portion  of  the 
rest  of  the  animal  world  to  be  sickly :  and  we 
all  know  that  the  sickly  females,  as  a  separate 
class  from  all  other  created  beings,  are  the 
human  females.  The  original  Eve,  made  in  her 
Maker's  image,  and  animated  with  His  breath, 
was  not  a  sick  Eve  ;  yet  she  was  made  with 
just  the  same  materials  as  you,  had  just  the 
same  number  of  bones,  muscles,  arteries,  veins 
and  nerves,  and  had  just  the  same  sets  of  or- 
gans, namely :  the  digestive,  circulatory,  respir- 
atory and  reproductive  organs. 

Alas !  how  far  have  we  fallen  from  this 
high  ideal  when  we  have  to  confess,  as  we 
must,  that  the  woman  who  is  not,  in  some  way, 
afflicted  with  "  a  female  weakness "  is  the  ex- 
ception and  not  the  rule  !  Saddest  of  all  is 
the  fact  that  woman  herself  is  responsible  for 
this  departure  from  God's  plan. 


Plants  and  Animals.  139 

Hopefullest  of  all  is  the  fact  that  she  may, 
if  she  will,  learn — nay,  that  she  is  seeking  to 
leai'D — wherein  she  has  erred,  in  order  that  she 
may  become  what  God  meant  she  should  be: 
a  companion  for  Adam,  strong  in  her  woman- 
liness as  he  is  in  his  manliness ;  beautiful  in 
her  healthfulness  as  he  in  his  ;  and  so,  fit  to 
become  his  help,  meet  for  all  good  works. 

Some  one  says,  "  Nothing  is  so  conducive 
to  a  right  appreciation  of  the  truth  as  a  right 
appreciation  of  the  error  by  which  it  is  sur- 
rounded." We  have  been  trying  to  study  God's 
woman  —  the  true  woman.  We  are  now  to 
search  for  the  causes  of  the  diseases  which 
years  have  heaped  upon  her  since  Eve  sprang 
from  the  Creator's  hand,  in  the  perfect  beauty 
of  a  healthy  womanhood — a  womanhood  which 
is  to-day,  for  the  greater  part,  but  an  ideal  in 
tlie  mind  of  the  poet,  the  painter  and  the 
sculptor. 

Said  the  Hon.  Horace  Mann :  "  I  hold  it 
morally  impossible  for  God  to  have  created, 
in  the  beginnings  such  men  and  women  as  we 
find  the  human  race,  in  their  physical  condi- 
tion, now  to  be.  Examine  the  book  of  Genesis, 
Vv-hich  contains  the  earliest  annals  of  the  human 


140  Plants  and  Animals. 

family.  As  is  commonly  siii)posed,  it  comprises 
tlie  first  two  thousand  three  hundred  and  sixty- 
nine  years  of  human  history.  With  cliild-like 
simplicity  this  book  describes  the  infancy  of 
mankind.  Unlike  modern  histories,  it  details 
the  minutest  circumstances  of  social  and  indi- 
vidual life.  Indeed,  it  is  rather  a  series  of 
biographies  than  a  history.  The  false  delicacy 
of  modern  times  did  not  forbid  the  mention  of 
whatever  was  done  or  suffered.  And  yet,  over 
all  that  expanse  of  time,  for  more  than  one- 
third  part  of  the  duration  of  the  human  race, 
not  a  single  instance  is  recorded  of  a  child  born 
blind  or  deaf  or  dumb  or  idiotic,  or  malformed 
in  any  way. 

"  During  the  w^hole  period,  not  a  single  case 
of  a  natural  death  in  infancy  or  childhood  or 
early  manhood,  or  even  of  middle  manhood,  is 
to  be  found.  The  simple  record  is,  *And  he 
died ' ;  or  he  died  in  a  good  old  age  and  full  of 
years;  or  he  was  old  and  full  of  days.  No 
epidemic,  nor  even  endemic,  diseases  prevailed; 
showing  that  they  died  the  natural  death  of 
healthy  men,  and  not  the  unnatural  death  of 
distempered  ones.  Through  all  this  time  (ex- 
cept in  the  single  case  of  Jacob,  in  his  old  age, 


Plants  and  Animals.  141 

and  then  only  a  day  or  two  before  Lis  death) 
it  does  not  appear  that  any  man  was  ill,  or  that 
any  old  Lndy  or  young  lady  fainted.  Bodily 
pain  from  disease  is  nowhere  mentioned." 

Certainly  it  does  not  appear  that  any  such 
array  of  "female  weaknesses"  has  ever  dis- 
graced womankind  in  any  age  as  characterize 
the  women  of  this  nineteenth  century. 

Says  Dr.  Edward  Clark,  in  his  most  sug- 
gestive and  truthful  book,  "Sex  in  Education": 
"Let  the  statement  be  empliasized  and  reiter- 
ated until  it  is  heeded,  that  w^oman's  neglect 
of  her  own  organization,  though  not  the  sole 
explanation  and  cause  of  her  many  weaknesses, 
more  than  any  single  cause  adds  to  their  num- 
ber and  intensifies  their  power.  It  limits  and 
lowers  her  action  very  much,  as  man  is  limited 
and  degraded  by  dissipation.  The  saddest  part 
of  it  all  is,  that  this  neglect  of  herself  in  girl- 
hood, when  her  organization  is  ductile  and  im- 
pressible, breeds  the  germs  of  diseases  that,  in 
later  life,  yield  torturing  or  fatal  maladies." 

Prominent  among  these  maladies  are  dis- 
eases of  the  uterus,  which  involve  its  position. 
Only  just  so  much  space  being  assigned  to  it 
in  the  pelvis,  if  it  is  turned  forward  or  back- 


142  Plants  and  Animals. 

ward  or  to  one  side  or  to  the  other,  there  is  at 
once  a  protest  from  the  nerves  of  the  adjacent 
organs  in  the  way  of  pain.  The  prominent 
causes  of  these  false  positions  are,  first,  the 
unnatural  weight  of  the  organ,  which  is  the 
inevitable  result  of  a  mode  of  dress  which 
forces  too  much  blood  to  it;  and,  second,  a 
flabby  condition  of  its  texture,  which  is  the 
natural  result  of  this  habitual  congestion. 

Not  less  common  than  false  positions  of  the 
organ  are  unnatural  conditions  of  the  mucous 
membrane  which  lines  it.  It  is  the  function  of 
all  mucous  membranes,  when  in  health,  to  se- 
crete enough  mucus  to  keep  the  surface  moist. 
As  soon  as  this  mucous  membrane  becomes 
unhealthy,  this  natural  moisture  increases  to 
the  extent  known  as  a  catarrhal  discharge ;  and, 
whether  this  discharge  be  a  nasal  or  a  uterine 
one,  its  character  is  the  same  and  its  cause  the 
same,  namely:  congestion.  This  discharge,  oc- 
curring from  the  uterus  or  from  the  vagina — 
which  is  the  canal  leading  from  the  uterus — is 
called  a  leucorrhcea.  If  it  occurs  from  the 
nose,  it  is  called  a  catarrh. 

Prominent  among  ovarian  diseases  is  the 
condition  known  as  ovarian  cyst,  where  one  or 


Plants  and  Animals.  143 

more  of  the  egg-sacs  already  spoken  of  become 
enormously  distended  with  a  fluid,  because  the 
ovaries  have  no  mucous  lining,  like  that  of  the 
nostrils,  the  uterus  and  the  vagina,  by  whose 
help  they  can  relieve  their  congestion ;  hence 
they  become  "  dropsical,"  since  they  cannot 
become  catarrhal. 

Each  and  all  of  these  condition s,  as  we 
shall  see,  only  express  some  constitutional  de- 
rangement of  organ  or  of  function,  induced 
by  one  or  more  of  the  following  causes,  aa 
given  by  Dr.  T.  G.  Thomas  in  his  work  on  the 
"  Diseases  of  Women  " : 

^'  First — Want  of  fresh  air  and  exercise. 

"  Second — Improprieties  in  dress. 

"  Third — Excessive  development  of  the  nerv- 
ous system  and  errors  in  education. 

^^  Fourth — Imprudence  during  menstruation. 

"  Fifth — Imprudence  after  parturition. 

"  Sixth — Prevention  of  conception  and  in- 
duction of  abortion. 

''  Seventh — Marriage  with  existing  uterine 
disease." 

This  is  a  concise  and  candid  statement  of 
the  causes  of  a  line  of  woman's  diseases  in 
Vvhose  treatment  Dr.  Thomas  has  won  a  world- 


144  Plants  and  Aiihnals. 

wide  reputation  for  success,  and  the  women 
who  daily  crowd  hia  office  for  treatment  now 
are  only  so  many  confirmations  of  the  state- 
ments above  made. 

I  have  no  desire,  my  dear  girls,  to  appall 
you  with  any  needless  pictures  of  misery.  I 
come  to  you  only  with  timely  warnings,  if 
haply  I  may  lead  you  to  take  my  ounce  of 
prevention  rather  than  that  you  go  blindly  on 
in  your  disregard  of  the  laws  of  health  until 
you  are  compelled  to  take  Dr.  Thomas'  pound 
of  cure  in  the  form  of  a  pessary,  or  some  inev- 
itable method  of  local  treatment.  This  you 
must  unavoidably  come  to  if  you  persist  in 
weighting  down  your  pelvic  organs  with  long, 
heavy  skirts  hung  upon  your  hips ;  if  you  per- 
sist in  compressing  your  chests  with  corsets 
or  bauds  so  that  their  contents  crowd  upon  the 
abdominal  organs,  causing  them  to  crowd,  in 
their  turn,  upon  the  pelvic  organs ;  and  if  you 
disregard  any  or  all  of  the  other  laws  of  health 
which  I  have  tried  to  detail  to  you. 

"As  in  that  which  is  above  nature,  so  in 
nature  itself,  he  that  breaks  one  physical  law 
is  gnilty  of  all.  The  whole  universe,  aa  it 
were,  takes  up  arms  against  him ;   and   all  na- 


Plants  and  Animals.  145 

ture,  with  her  numberless  and  unseen  powers, 
is  ready  to  avenge  herself  on  him,  and  on  his 
children  after  him,  he  knows  not  when  nor 
where. 

"He,  on  the  other  hand,  who  obeys  the 
laws  of  nature,  with  his  whole  heart  and  mind, 
will  find  all  things  working  together  to  him 
for  good.  He  is  at  peace  with  the  physical 
universe.  He  is  helped  and  befriended  alike 
by  the  sun  above  his  head  and  the  dust  beneath 
his  feet;  because  he  is  obeying  the  will  and 
mind  of  Him  who  made  sun  and  dust  and  all 
things,  and  who  has  given  them  a  law  which 
cannot  be  broken." — Rey.  Charles  Kingsley 
(•'Health  and  Education"). 


CHAPTEE  X. 

HOW   TO   BECOME  BEAUTIFUL. 

We  have  now  studied  the  four  separate 
stories  of  the  house  we  live  in ;  have  learned 
something  of  the  furniture  contained  in  each, 
and  have  seen  how  perfectly  each  separate 
piece  is  adapted  to  its  individual  uses.  We 
have  also  learned  how  all  the  four  stories  are 
brought  into  the  most  intimate  relations  with 
each  other  by  means  of  the  blood-vessels,  which, 
like  water-pipes  which  go  all  over  the  houses 
made  with  hands,  permeate  every  cavity  and 
every  cell  of  this  most  complex  structure. 

We  have  also  learned  that  two  very  com- 
plicated nervous  systems  accompany  and  ani- 
mate these  many-branched  tubes,  through  which 
the  life-blood  circulates,  by  whose  presence  each 


HoiD  to  Become  Beautiful.  147 

department  is  kept  constantly  informed  of  the 
condition  of  things  in  all  the  other  departments, 
so  that  no  one  organ  or  set  of  organs  can  suf^ 
fer  derangement  without  having  the  fact  known 
all  through  the  house. 

"And  whether  one  member  suffer,  all  the 
members  suffer  with  it.  And  the  eye  cannot 
say  unto  the  hand,  I  have  no  need  of  thee; 
nor,  again,  the  head  to  the  feet,  I  have  no  need 
of  you." 

We  can  easily  extend  our  comparison  of  the 
human  body  with  the  houses  made  with  hands 
Btill. further,  and  liken  the  blood-vessels  to  the 
w^ater-pipes,  and  the  nerves  to  the  gas-pipes, 
for  the  nerves  are  indeed  our  liglit-bringers, 
in  that  all  intelligence  is  due  to  them ;  we 
shall  then  realize  how  entire  is  this  mutual 
interdependence  of  all  parts  of  the  body. 

We  might  call  the  pelvis  the  basement 
story,  for  upon  the  organs  contained  in  it  rests 
the  whole  weight  of  the  responsibility  of  the 
continuance  of  animal  life.  So  might  the  ab- 
domen be  likened  to  the  cook  rooms  where 
rare  and  fine  products  are  elaborated  from  raw 
materials ;  while  the  thorax  or  chest  may  be 
likened  to  the  drawing-room,  where  fair  forms 


148  How  to  Become  Beautiful. 

of  thought  and  art  are  ventilated,  and  the  head 
may  fitly  rank  as  an  observatory.  ISTow,  we 
all  know  that  if  the  basement  story  is  not 
maintained  m  the  most  perfect  order,  the  fact 
is  sure  to  assert  itself  in  the  upper  stories,  and 
this  is  no  less  true  of  the  houses  "  not  made 
with  hands "  than  of  those  which  man  fabri- 
cates, 60  that  a  headache  is  often  referable  to 
a  wrong  state  of  affairs  in  the  pelvis ;  indeed, 
this  is  one  of  the  commonest  causes  of  head- 
ache, and  all  the  headache  cures  that  ever  were 
invented  will  avail  you  nothing  so  long  as  their 
cause  remains  unsought  and  unheeded. 

But  we  have  not  yet  covered  our  house, 
and  it  remains  for  us  now  to  speak  of  the  skin 
and  its  appendages. 

Let  us  first  glance  at  the  long  array  of  ma- 
terials which  Dame  Nature  has  made  use  of 
with  which  to  cover  her  creatures  down  in  the 
lower  ranks  of  Creation  !  Note  the  firm,  crusty 
skin  which  protects  the  soft  coral  insect,  and 
remember  that  when  you  adorn  yourself  with 
this  memento  of  a  departed  life  you  perpetuate 
the  memory  of  these  "  Toilers  of  the  Sea  "  as 
effectually  as  you  immortalize  your  friend  whose 


How  to  Become  Beautiful.  149 

liair  is  woven  into  the  ornaments  jou  most 
prize. 

The  pearlj  too,  whicli  lends  you  its  histrous 
lio-ht,  is  but  the  secretion  from  the  soft  mantle 
of  skin  which  invests  the  mollusk,  whether  he 
be  ojster  or  mussel,  and  which  is  but  the 
preface  to  his  harder  skin — his  shell.  So,  too, 
the  beetle  and  the  bee  have  their  crusty  skins, 
some  of  them  most  gorgeously  colored,  as  you 
know,  far  beyond  imitation  by  man's  device. 

Then  there  are  the  scales  of  the  fishes  ;  the 
horny  plates  of  the  tortoise  ;  the  feathery  over- 
coat of  the  butterfly,  the  moth  and  the  bird;  and 
lastly,  tlie  woolly  and  hairy  coats  of  the  quadru- 
peds. "What  a  bounteous  storehouse  of  resources 
and  materials  is  Dame  Nature's  workshop ! 

Let  us  now  confine  ourselves  to  the  struc- 
ture and  uses  of  our  own  natural  covering.  If 
you  could  look  at  a  very  much  magnified  verti- 
cal section  of  your  skin,  you  would  see  a  most 
marvelous  array  of  apparatus  for  keeping  you 
warm  in  winter  and  cool  in  summer,  as  well 
as  for  carrying  off  your  waste  material.  AYhat 
a  network  of  minute  blood-vessels  is  there 
spread  out !  and  how  the  bright  tint  of  blood, 
which  is  all  aglow  with  fresh  air  and  sunlight, 


150  How  to  Become  Beautiful, 

Bliines  through  the  superficial  layer  of  thia  won- 
drous structure  !  ^o  outward  application  of 
paint  or  powder  can  possibly  compare  in  beauty 
with  the  natural  color  of  a  clean,  healthy  skin. 

Emerson  says :  "  The  lesson  taught  by  the 
study  of  Greek  and  of  Gothic  art,  of  antique 
and  of  pre-Haphaelite  painting,  was  worth  all 
the  research,  namely :  that  all  beauty  must  be 
organic;  that  outside  embellishment  is  deform- 
ity... .The  tint  of  the  flower  proceeds  from  its 
root,  and  the  lusters  of  the  sea-shell  begin  with 
its  existence." 

So  thoroughly  is  your  skin  a  part  of  your 
body  that  it  reveals  as  infallibly  the  state  of 
affairs  within  as  it  reports  to  your  nerve- 
centers  the  temperature  of  the  air  and  objects 
without,  by  means  of  the  countless  nerve  termi- 
nals which  are  imbedded  in  its  layers.  This 
complicated  network  of  arteries,  veins  and 
nerves  is  sustained  in  position  by  a  foundation 
Btructure  of  cell  tissue  in  comparison  with  whose 
delicacy  and  beauty  your  choicest  laces  are 
mere  bungling  imitations;  while  all  around  and 
about  vein  and  artery  and  nerve  are  glands  for 
collecting  the  perspiration,  and  tubes  for  carry- 
ing it  off — tubes   whose   whole   extent,   taking 


How  to  Become  Beautiful.  151 

the  entire  skin  into  account,  is  estimated  at  no 
less  than  twentj-eight  miles,  while  the  openings 
in  the  skin  by  which  these  drainage  tubes  dis- 
charge their  contents  upon  the  outside  of  your 
body  number  no  less  than  three  thousand  five 
hundred  and  twenty-eight  to  the  square  inch 
in  the  palm  of  the  hand.  Think  of  allowing 
this  sewage  to  accumulate  upon  the  body  and 
its  garments  !  Can  you  wonder  that  filth  and 
disease  go  hand  in  hand  ? 

Besides  all  this  array  of  tubes  and  nerves 
and  fibers  and  glands  there  are  the  bulbs  in 
which  each  individual  hair  has  its  origin,  and 
into  these  bulbs  there  is  poured  the  nicest  of 
natural  pomade,  which  is  elaborated  in  little 
oil  glands  which  are  put  there  for  this  very 
purpose.  A  clean  and  healthy  scalp  will  keep 
its  own  hair  oiled  without  any  aid  from  profes- 
sional hair-dressers,  with  rancid  oils  disguised 
by  strong  perfumes. 

And  last  of  all  is  that  fine  array  of  tactile 
corpuscles,  or  little  bodies  of  touch,  by  which 
we  get  that  exquisite  sensibility  of  the  finger^ 
tips  which  enables  them  to  act  as  eyes  for  the 
blind.  Look  at  your  finger-tips,  and  note  the 
ridges,  which  are  quite  apparent  to  the  naked 


152  How  to  Become  Beautiful. 

eye.  Those  ridges  contain  Buch  numbers  of 
these  little  bodies  of  touch  that  Meissner  tells 
us  he  counted  one  hundred  and  eight  of  them 
in  the  space  of  about  one-fiftieth  of  a  square 
inch  on  the  inner  surface  of  the  tips  of  one 
finger. 

The  skin  has  its  own  muscles,  too,  by  which 
it  is  capable  of  drawing  itself  up  into  little 
papillae — the  condition  known  as  "  goose-flesh." 
You  have  seen  horses  curl  up  their  skins  to 
shake  off  the  flies.  Their  skin  muscles  are 
more  highly  developed  than  yours  because  they 
are  no  longer  supplied  with  five  fingers,  what- 
ever may  have  been  their  condition  in  the  ages 
gone  by,  and  they  are  obliged  to  walk  upon 
the  tip  of  the  one  finger  which  remains  to 
them. 

Let  us  pass  now  to  the  consideration  of  the 
uses  of  all  this  mechanism.  The  physiologists 
have  agreed  upon  quite  an  array  of  functions 
for  the  skin,  namely :  protection,  secretion,  ex- 
cretion, absorption,  regulation  of  temperature, 
and  general  sensation.  You  have  all  realized 
the  value  of  the  skin  as  a^j/^ozfeczfc*/'  if  you  have 
torn  it  away  from  the  nerve  sentinels  which  are 
so  thickly  stationed  under  its  cuticle,  and  the 


Hoio  to  Become  Beautiful.  153 

bit  of  court-plaster,  or  otherwise,  to  which  you 
at  once  resort,  serves  you  kindly  in  that  it  acts 
as  a  temporary  substitute  for  the  lost  cuticle 
while  your  vital  forces  make  a  new  one  for 
you.  The  functions  oi ^secretion  and  excretion 
have  already  been  alluded  to  in  speaking  of 
the  oil  glands  and  sweat  glands.  The  amount 
of  the  waste  matter  excreted  upon  the  skin,  by 
means  of  the  twenty-eight  miles  of  sewer-pipe 
already  mentioned,  varies  between  two  and 
three  pounds  a  day,  according  to  the  tempera- 
ture of  the  atmosphere.  This  fact  is  a  sufficient 
argument  in  favor  of  a  daily  ablution  of  the 
whole  body. 

The  function  of  absorption  is  taken  advan- 
tage of  for  the  administration  of  medicines  in 
the  way  of  ointments,  liniments,  lotions,  etc. 
Anointing  or  inunction  is  one  of  the  most  prim- 
itive methods  of  medication.  Isaiah  refers  to 
oil  as  ointment  in  medical  treatment.  The 
Grecian  athletes  anointed  themselves  for  their 
games.     Homer,  in  the  Odyssey,  says : 

"Sweet  Poljcaste  took  the  pleasing  toil 
To  bathe  the  prince  and  pour  the  fragrant  oil." 

Juno,  in  the  Iliad,  anoints  herself  with  "oil 
ambrosial  sweet,"  and  Yenus  anoints  the  body 


154:  IIoio  to  Become  Beautiful. 

of  Hector  with  oil  scented  with  roses.  In  the 
Roman  baths  of  Diocletian  anointing  was  car- 
ried to  great  perfection,  and  various  spices — 
among  them,  cloves,  cinnamon,  lavender  and 
roses — were  used  in  the  process.  The  rich  had 
precious  ointments,  which  they  carried  to  the 
baths  in  small  vials  of  alabaster. 

It  is  recorded  that  the  emperor  Hadrian, 
seeing  a  veteran  soldier  rubbing  himself  against 
the  marble  of  the  public  baths,  asked  him  why 
he  did  so.  "  I  have  no  slave  to  rub  me,"  was 
the  answer.  Upon  which  the  emperor  gave 
him  two  slaves  and  sufficient  to  maintain  them. 
Another  day  several  old  men  rubbed  themselves 
against  the  wall  in  the  emperor's  presence, 
hoping  to  be  favored  in  a  similar  manner,  when 
the  shrewd  emperor,  perceiving  their  object, 
directed  them  to  rub  one  another. 

Modern  practice  favors  the  use  of  oils  in 
fevers,  especially  scarlet  fever,  where  the  skin 
is  parched,  hot  and  dry ;  and  it  is  claimed  that 
thorough  inunction  not  only  does  not  choke 
the  pores  of  the  skin,  but  actually  encourages 
their  opening,  forcing  the  ointment  through  the 
outer  skin  and  stimulating  the  absorbing  ves- 
sels to  take  it  up. 


How  to  Becoine  Beautiful.  155 

If,  then,  the  skin,  by  reason  of  its  absorbent 
qualities,  is  capable  of  taking  in  what  is  deemed 
salutary  for  it,  it  is  plain  that  it  is  no  less  ready 
to  absorb  obnoxious  substances  which  may  come 
in  contact  with  it.  This  fact  is  a  sufficient  ar- 
gument in  favor  of  frequent  changes  of  the 
clothing  which  is  worn  next  the  person,  and  for 
its  thorough  ventilation;  also  for  a  complete 
change  at  night  from  the  clothing  worn  through 
the  day ;  also  for  the  most  thorough  daily  ven- 
tilation of  the  bed  and  its  belongings — in  short, 
for  supplying  it  with  the  purest  possible  air  at 
all  times. 

To  appreciate  the  fact  that  the  skin  is  a 
regulator  of  tempej^ature^  we  have  only  to  re- 
call the  discomfort  of  a  hot,  dry  skin  as  com- 
.  pared  with  the  relief  afforded  when  a  natural 
perspiration  ensues,  which,  by  the  process  of 
evaporation,  speedily  reduces  the  temperature 
of  the  whole  body.  We  can  also  recall  the 
lassitude  of  a  hot  summer  day  when  the  air  is 
surcharged  with  moisture  to  such  an  extent 
that  the  evaporation  from  the  body  is  checked, 
and  we  long  to  see  the  sun  disperse  the  heavy 
clouds,  so  that  our  clouds  may  vanish,  too,  by 
the  power  of  his  upward  attraction. 


156  How  to  Become  Beautiful, 

That  the  skin  is  the  seat  of  a  most  nice 
sense  of  touch  needs  no  proof.  It  is  even 
siffirmed  that  the  blind  are  able  to  tell  colors 
by  this  sense. 

"We  come  now  to  the  consideration  of  the 
hygiene  of  this  most  complicated  texture.  It 
will  be  plain  to  you  at  once  that  the  same  rules 
which  govern  the  other  parts  of  the  body  are 
also  dominant  here.  The  skin  must  have  plenty 
of  light,  plenty  of  air  and  plenty  of  water  to 
insure  its  health  and  its  beauty.  If  it  is  kept 
perfectly  familiar  with  these  three  essentials, 
the  whole  body  will  be  full  of  light  and  air 
and  comfort.  Said  Mr.  John  Quincy  Adams, 
in  his  ninetieth  year  :  *'Men  and  women  rarely 
ever  allow  the  fresh  air  of  heaven  to  touch 
any  part  of  their  bodies  except  their  hands 
and  face,  and  even  to  these  the  ladies  are  sys- 
tematically unjust  by  wearing  gloves  and  veils. 
The  surface  of  the  beautiful  human  form  re- 
quires to  be  for  a  certain  period  of  every  day 
exposed  to  the  action  of  the  atmosphere.  I 
take  my  air-bath  regularly  every  morning,  and 
walk  in  my  bedroom,  in  2>uris  naturalibus, 
with  all  the  windows  open,  for  a  full  half  hour. 
i   also   take   a   water-bath   daily.     I   read   and 


IIow  to  Become  Beautiful.  157 

write  for  eight  hours  a  day.  I  sleep  eight 
hours,  and  devote  another  eight  to  exercise, 
conversation,  and  meals.  I  feel  in  myself  a 
reserve  of  bodily  strength,  which,  I  think,  will 
carry  me  to  a  hundred  years,  unless  I  die  by 
accident  or  am  shot  or  hanged." 

TVhy  should  not  the  whole  skin  have  its 
daily  share  of  air  and  light  and  water !  Why 
give  it  all  to  the  skin  of  the  face  and  hands ! 
Indeed,  the  amount  of  chronic  hydrophobia 
(fear  of  water)  which  afflicts  the  human  race 
is  simply  astounding,  and  goes  far  toward  ex- 
plaining why  they  suffer,  in  so  many  needless 
ways,  from  catarrh,  bronchitis,  fevers,  "  colds 
in  the  head,"  and  rheumatism.  You  will  never 
find  that  a  person  whose  whole  skin  knows  the 
daily  luxury  of  an  air  and  water  bath  is  in  the 
habit  of  "taking  cold." 

The  importance  attached  by  the  hardy  Eo- 
mans  to  baths  is  evidenced  by  the  number  and 
magnificence  of  such  establishments :  that  built 
by  Diocletian  accommodated  three  thousand  at 
a  time.  Moses  and  Mahomet  made  cleanliness 
religion.  Some  one  says  that  Dirt,  Debt  and 
the  Devil  make  the  Trinity  of  Evil. 

Says  Dr.  PLayfair :  "  For  a  thousand  years 


158  How  to  Become  Beautiful. 

after  the  civilization  of  the  Egyptians,  the 
Jews,  the  Greeks  and  the  Homans  faded,  there 
was  not  a  man  or  woman  in  Europe  that  ever 
took  a  bath.  Hence  arose  the  wondrous  epi- 
demics of  the  Middle  Ages,  which  cut  off  one- 
fourth  of  the  population  of  Europe :  the  spotted 
plague,  the  black  death,  the  sweating  sickness, 
and  the  terrible  mental  epidemics  which  fol- 
lowed in  their  train — the  dancing  mania,  the 
mewing  mania,  and  the  biting  mania.  The 
monks  made  no  little  mischief,  imitating  the 
foul  habits  of  the  hermits  and  saints  of  early 
Christian  times ;  and  the  association  of  filth 
w4th  religion  led  men  to  cease  to  connect  dis- 
ease with  uncleanliness,  and  to  resort  to  shrines 
and  winking  virgins  for  cures  of  maladies  pro- 
duced by  their  own  physical  and  moral  impu- 
rities." 

It  was  an  Arab  motto,  "  Renew  thyself 
daily.  Do  it  again  and  again,  and  forever 
again." 

I  suppose  those  "hermits  and  saints  of 
early  Christian  times "  were  acting  under  the 
delusion  that  the  more  they  mortified  their 
flesh  the  more  they  deified  the  spirit;  so  they 
wore  the  hair-shirt  until  it  was  literally  alive 


How  to  Become  Beautiful.         - 159 

with  vermin ;  and  it  was  not  until  the  advent 
of  the  Moors  into  Spain,  with  their  Mahometan 
habits  of  cleanliness,  that  Christian  Europe 
learned  the  mistake  it  had  made  in  so  falsely 
interpreting  the  religion  of  Jesus.  Indeed,  it 
appears  that  modern  Christianity  has  so  largely 
occupied  itself  with  the  idea  of  self-chastisement 
that  it  has  almost  lost  sight  of  the  joy  and 
sweetness  which  flow  through  all  the  life  of 
Jesus,  just  as  the  old  painters  put  only  sorrow 
and  suffering  into  their  pictures  of  him,  with 
never  a  trace  of  the  joy  which  he  must  have 
known  by  the  very  consciousness  of  his  own. 
purity.  In  this  spirit  painted  Guido  Eeni, 
who,  it  is  said,  actually  stabbed  the  man  who 
sat  for  his  picture  of  Christ,  in  order  that  he 
might  most  vividly  portray  the  agony  which 
he,  in  common  with  all  the  old  masters,  made 
the  dominant  characteristic  in  the  face  of  him 
who  came  to  inaugurate  the  kingdom  of  love, 
joy,  and  peace.  And  so,  to-day,  the  nearer  a 
people  are  to  the  darkness  and  the  errors  and 
the  gross  superstitions  of  the  Middle  Ages,  the 
less  do  they  appreciate  the  good  that  lies  all 
about  us  in  the  abundant  outflowing  of  God's 
free  air  and  water  and  joy-giving  sunshine.     It 


160  •         Hov^  to  Become  Beautiful. 

is  pitiful  to  note  this  in  the  largo  cities,  where 
the  degraded  victims  of  the  poverty  which  al- 
ways goes  hand  in  hand  with  ignorance  and 
vice  herd  together  in  dens  of  darkness  which 
reek  with  filth. 

During  a  practice  of  several  months  in  one 
of  the  New  York  dispensaries,  where  the  poor 
get  plenty  of  medicines  and  plenty  of  prescrip- 
tions from  newly -fledged  doctors,  "without 
money  and  without  price,"  I  was  again  and 
again  shocked,  not  only  by  the  fear  of  water 
which  prevails  among  this  class  of  .misguided 
beings,  but  also  by  the  immense  doses  of  medi- 
cine which  they  require  to  enable  them  to  live 
without  air  and  water.  As  a  rule,  they  don't 
want  any  advice  about  living  so  as  to  get  along 
without  medicine,  and  they  estimate  the  med- 
ical skill  of  their  adviser  by  the  amount  of 
medicine  given.     No  medicine,  no  brains ! 

I  remember  a  very  filthy  woman  who  used 
to  come  every  Saturday  for  pills.  All  the 
accumulated  filth  upon  the  surface  of  her  body 
would  defy  description.  As  it  was  in  the  heat 
of  midsummer,  I  ventured  to  propose  that  she 
take  fewer  pills  for  the  inner  self  and  more 
water   for   the   outer   self.     In   short,  I  copied 


Holo  to  Become  Beautiful.  161 

Mr.  Dick's  prescription  for  little  Davy  when 
his  aunt  Betsy  Trotwood  asked,  "What  sliall 
we  do  with  him?"  "Wash  him!"  I  wish 
there  were  any  words  by  which  I  might  pict- 
ure for  you  the  expression  with  which  she 
asked  me,  ''What!  all  overf^^  She  then  in- 
formed me  that  she  had  never  done  such  a 
thing  in  her  life,  and  should  be  ashamed  to 
tell  of  it  if  she  had.  Medicine  she  must  have. 
God's  pure  air  and  water  and  sunshine  she 
was  afraid  of.  I  think  I  succeeded  in  getting 
the  whole  of  that  filthy  body  washed  by  in- 
ducing her  to  take  it  by  installments.  I  gave 
her  a  half  dozen  powders  of  carbonate  of  soda^ 
told  her  to  dissolve  one  in  a  basin  of  water 
and  apply  externally  until  the  whole  body  was 
thus  medicated.  The  medicine  (!)  induced  her 
to  try  this  plan  of  ablation. 

You  will,  perhaps,  say  this  is  an  exagger- 
ated case;  but  I  assure  you  "such  things  are 
common."  Even  in  my  intercourse  with  young 
ladies  in  scliools,  to  whom  I  advocate  the  daily 
ablution  of  the  entire  surface  of  the  body,  I 
am  frequently  met  with  the  objection,  "  I  can- 
not spare  the  time."  And  this,  when  five  min- 
utes  are   all   that   are    required.      A  basin   of 


162  Hoii:!  to  Become  Beautiful. 

cold  water,  where  the  bath-tub  is  wanting, 
and  two  clean  towels,  with  brisk  action  of 
tlie  hands  and  arms,  are  all  that  are  required. 
Let  the  whole  person  be  denuded  at  once, 
and  in  cold  weather  let  the  work  be  done  as 
briskly  as  possible.  The  tonic  inflQence  of 
such  a  bath  in  tlie  morning  (for  the  morning 
is  the  time  for  the  cold  bath,  warm  baths 
being  indicated  only  at  bedtime)  will  last  all 
through  the  day,  and  is  the  best  possible  safe- 
guard against  '^  taking  cold."  If  you  are  obliged 
to  have  a  room-mate,  a  little  ingenuity  will  en- 
able you  to  improvise  a  screen.  I  hope  the 
time  will  come  when  the  putting  two  girls 
into  one  bed  and  one  dressing-room  will  be 
recognized  as  an  injustice  to  each.  The  pres- 
ent practice  in  boarding  and  other  schools,  in 
this  respect,  is  pernicious. 

Let  it  be  understood  that  in  giving  these 
directions  to  young  girls  for  daily  ablutions  in 
cold  water,  I  assume  that  I  address  those  in 
health.  Invalids  must  remember  that  the  fam- 
ily physician  must  be  their  guide  in  this  mat- 
ter. 

An  emphatic  proof  of  the  danger  of  stop- 
ping up  the  pores  of  the  skin  is  afforded  in 


How  to  Become  Beautiful.  163 

history  bj  the  case  of  the  child  whose  skin 
was  gilded  to  represent  the  golden  ago  at  the 
brilliant  fete  which  celebrated  the  election  ol 
Pope  Leo  the  Tenth.  The  child  died  in  con- 
Bequence  of  the  application.  Foucault,  a  French 
experimenter,  covered  animals  with  a  coat  of 
varnish.  They  died  more  quickly  than  if  the 
whole  skin  had  been  removed.  Horses  had 
catarrh,  dogs  had  congestion  of  liver  and  in- 
flammation of  bowels,  and  all  died  in  convul- 
sions. 

Think  of  this,  dear  girls,  when  you  are 
tempted  to  follow  the  example  of  those  mis- 
taken mortals  who  apply  paints  and  powders 
and  enamels  to  the  face  in  order  to  appear 
beautiful  (?)  in  the  eyes  of  men.  The  late  Dr. 
Edward  Clark,  in  his  most  truthful  book  on 
"  Sex  in  Education,"  has  given  you  all  the 
help  you  need  to  become  beautiful,  as  follows : 

"  ^  When  one  sees  a  godlike  countenance,' 
said  Socrates  to  Phsedrue,  '  or  some  bodily 
form  that  represents  beauty,  he  reverences  it 
as  a  god,  and  would  sacrifice  to  it.'  From 
the  days  of  Plato  till  now  all  have  felt  the 
power  of  woman's  beauty,  and  been  more  than 
willing   to    sacrifice   to    it.      The    proper,   not 


164  How  to  Become  Beautiful, 

exclusive,  search  for  it  is  a  legitimate  inspira- 
tion.    The   way  for  a  girl    to   obtain  her  por- 
tion of  this  radiant  halo  is  by  the  symmetrical 
development  of  every  part  of  her  organization 
— muscle,  ovary,  stomach,  and  nerve — and  by 
a  physiological  management  of  every  function 
that  correlates  every  organ ;  not  by  neglecting, 
or  trying  to  stifle  or  abort,  any  of  the   vital 
and  integral  parts   of  her   structure_,  and  sup- 
plying the   deficiency  by  invoking   the   aid  of 
the  milliner's  stuffing,  the  colorist's  pencil,  the 
druggist's  compounds,  the  doctor's  pelvic  sup- 
porter, and  the  surgeon's  spinal  brace." 
"  AYhat  is  good  for  pimples  ?" 
Water   and   work.     Pimples    indicate    that 
there  is  an  excess  of  something  in  the  blood 
which   the   internal   organs    of    excretion   have 
been  unable  to  dispose  of,  and  they  have  called 
in   the    excretory  power  of  the   skin   to   their 
aid.     If  you  take  very  little  exercise  and  live 
indoors,   it    follow^s    that   you   must   also   take 
very  little   food.     You  know   what   the   result 
is  if  you  keep  putting  coal  on  the  fire  and  neg- 
lect to  open  the  draughts.     There  can   be  no 
life  in  the  grate  nor  in  your  body  unless  oxy- 
gen  is    supplied  to  each  in  proportion   to   the 


Hoxo  to  Become  Beautiful.  165 

carbon  which  is  brought  in.  Your  candies  and 
sweetmeats  are  so  much  carbon,  and  you  need 
a  pound  of  oxygen  per  diem  to  burn  up  your 
carbon.  In  order  to  make  sure  of  this  daily 
pound  of  oxygen  you  must  make  your  mus 
cles  work  in  the  open  air.  Take  long,  vigo- 
rous walks,  and  let  the  sun  shine  on  you  with 
his  life-giving  power.  Find  useful  work  to 
do! 

Said  an  eminent  Western  lawyer,  writing 
upon  the  subject  of  health  reforms  and  reforms 
in  general :  "  If  I  had  supreme  power,  or  could 
give  one  direction  which  should  be  followed, 
and  would,  in  my  judgment,  do  more  than 
any  other  one  thing  to  reform  the  world,  and 
especially  young  ladies,  I  would  say,  '  Work !' 
I  mean  manual  labor.  Every  man,  woman 
and  child  should  work.  It  is  the  idle  ones 
who  become  the  wicked  ones.  I  do  not  rec- 
ollect ever  to  have  seen  a  downright  indus- 
trious man  or  woman  who  was  very  bad;  and 
it  seems  to  me  that  a  reform  in  this  direction 
is  more  needed  in  the  United  States  than  any- 
where else.  All  the  American  youth  are  con- 
triving  how  to  get  a  living  without  work, 
under  the  silly  notion  that  work  is  disgraceful. 


166  How  to  Become,  Beautiful. 

How  clearly  I  can  see  that  the  Germans  in 
this  country  are  getting  ahead  of  the  natives! 
They  pay  their  debts,  and  their  families  are 
almost  all  in  comfortable  circumstances.  It  is 
because  they  are  willing  to  work. 

"It  seems  to  me  that  there  is  another  de- 
cided defect  in  the  bringing  up  and  education 
of  girls;  and  that  is,  that  they  are  too  super- 
ficial. They  canter  over  a  great  variety  of 
studies,  get  a  smattering  of  each,  and  nothing 
is  thoroughly  mastered.  *To  get  on  in  life' 
means  to  be  so  much  the  master  of  your  art 
that  you  make  it  for  the  interest  of  the  world 
to  employ  you." 

And  he  is  right.  Happy  is  it  for  each  one 
of  you  who  is  dependent  upon  her  own  exer- 
tions for  a  maintenance.  Work  is  the  best 
of  tonics  and  the  best  of  beautifiers.  The  list- 
lessness,  the  sallowness  and  the  shallowness  of 
her  who  has  nothing  to  do  but  to  try  to  look 
pretty  are  pitiful  to  contemplate.  No  less  are 
you  happy  who,  though  not  dependent  upon 
your  own  labor  for  maintenance,  have  sought 
and  found  ways  of  work  which  call  out  your 
best  powers.  You  are  both  out  of  danger  of 
rusting,  and,  in  large  degree,  you  are   out  of 


Hoio  to  Jjecome  Beautiful.  167 


danger  of  falliug  "  into  the  hands  of  the  physi- 
cian," as  we  read  that  he  shall  do  "  who  siu- 
neth  against  his  Maker " ;  for  it  is  the  idlo, 
and  not  the  industrious,  who  are  prone  to  vice. 
And  all  these  principles  of  ethics  are  directly 
applicable  to  the  question  in  hand.  A  lazy 
skin,  which  lacks  the  stimulus  afforded  by  act- 
ive exercise  and  by  daily  contact  with  air  and 
water,  is  sure  to  be  the  pimpled  and  blotched 
skin. 

"  What  makes  freckles,  and  how  may  we 
get  rid  of  them  V 

Freckles  are  sun-spots,  and  the  more  act- 
ively you  make  the  skin  work  and  perspire 
the  sooner  they  will  disappear.  Do  not  shut 
yourselves  away  from  sunlight  for  fear  of  them. 
The  best  complexions  are  often  the  most  sensi- 
tive to  these  sun-impressions,  and  you  had  far 
better  w^ear  a  freckled  skin  than  to  look  like 
the  cellar  potato-sprout,  lank  and  pale  and  un- 
comely, for  lack  of  sunlight. 

"  What  are  moth-patches,  and  what  can  one 
do  for  them  ?'' 

Moth-patches  are  allitjd  to  the  fungi  which 
one  sees  on  the  north  side  of  buildings,  where 


168  IIow  to  Become  Beautiful. 

tlie   sun    never    sliines.     "  Walk    in    the   light " 
for  them  ! 

"  What  will  make  the  hair  grow  ?" 
Water  and  air  and  light.  The  hairs  are 
but  so  many  appendages  of  the  skin,  and  their 
health  and  vigor  and  luxuriance  depend  upon 
its  healtli  and  vigor.  Any  excess  of  artificial 
applications  to  the  head,  which  deprive  its  skin 
of  air  and  light,  lessen  its  vigor,  and  so  tend 
to  hasten  the  decay  of  its  hairy  covering.  The 
head  should  be  kept  just  as  clean  as  the  rest 
of  the  body,  and  the  hair  should  have  its  ends 
clipped  as  often  as  once  a  month,  else  it  soon 
comes  to  resemble  the  lawns  which  know  not 
the  lawn-mower. 

Masses  of  dead  women's  hair,  or  of  jute,  or 
any  foreign  substance  which  heats  and  burdens 
the  head,  are  not  favorable  to  the  health  of 
the  hair.  It  is  marvelous  liow  little  regard  is 
paid,  as  a  rule,  by  young  ladies  to  the  style 
of  the  individual  head  and  face  in  the  choice 
of  the  style  for  the  arrangement  of  the  hair. 
A  new  style  comes  into  vogue,  and  all  at  once, 
like  a  flock  of  sheep  following  the  leader — 
the  long-faced  and  the  round-faced,  the  thin- 
faced  and  the  wide-faced,  the  high-headed  and 


Holo  to  Become  Beaxdiful.  169 

the  flat-lieadecl,  tlie  big-headed  and  the  little- 
headed — rush  to  adopt  it,  utterly  regardless  of 
the  question  of  fitness.  I  beg  you,  if  you  be 
lacking  in  a  sense  of  the  fitness  of  things,  to 
choose  from  among  your  friends  her  who  is 
most  truthful  and  most  competent  to  counsel 
you  in  this  matter,  and,  above  all  other  con- 
siderations, I  pray  you  to  put  that  of  tidiness 
of  arrangement  first  and  foremost. 

Finally,  to  quote  once  more  from  Mr.  Em- 
erson on  Beauty :  "  It  is  a  rule  of  largest  ap» 
plication,  true  in  a  plant,  true  in  a  loaf  of 
bread,  that,  in  the  construction  of  any  fabric 
or  organism,  any  real  increase  of  fitness  to 
its  end  is  an  increase  of  beauty.'''' 

Also  upon  Behavior :  ^'  I  have  seen  man- 
ners that  make  a  similar  impression  with  per- 
sonal beauty ;  that  give  the  like  exhilaration, 
and  refine  us  like  that ;  and,  in  memorable  ex- 
periences, they  are  suddenly  better  than  beauty, 
and  make  that  superfluous  and  ugly.  But  they 
must  be  marked  by  fine  perception,  the  ac- 
quaintance with  real  beauty.  They  must  al- 
ways show  self-control :  you  shall  not  be  facile, 
apologetic,  or  leaky,  but  king  over  your  word ; 
and    every    gesture    and    action    shall   indicate 


170  Hoio  to  Become  Beautiful, 

power  at  rest.  Then,  they  mast  be  insph^ed 
by  the  good  lieart.  There  is  no  heautifier  of 
comjAexion,  oi'  foriii,  or  behavior,  like  the 
wish   to   scatter  joy,   and  not   jpain^   around 


CHAPTEK  XI. 

THE  USES  AXD  ABUSES   OF   DRESS. 

'*  The  first  purpose  of  clothes  was  not 
warmth  or  decency,  but  ornament.  .  .  .The  sav- 
age found  warmth  in  the  toils  of  the  chase,  or 
amid  dried  leaves  in  the  hollow  tree,  in  his 
bark  shed,  or  natural  grotto  ;  but  for  decora- 
tion he  must  have  clothes.  I^ay,  among  wild 
people  we  find  tattooing  and  painting  even 
prior  to  clothes.  The  first  sjnritual  want  of 
a  barbarous  man  is  decoration,  as,  indeed,  we 
still  see  among  the  barbarous  classes  in  civil- 
ized countries.  .  .  .  Clothes,  which  began  in  fool- 
ishest  love  of  ornament,  what  have  they  not 
become  to  us  ! ...  .  Clothes  gave  us  individuality, 
distinctions,  social  polity.  Clothes  have  made 
men   of    us ;    they   aro    threatening    to    make 


172       The  Uses  and  Abuses  of  Dress. 

clothes-screens  of  us." — Thos.  Caklyle  (''Sar- 
tor Resartus"). 

Since  man  is  the  only  wearer  of  artificial 
clothing — his  natural  covering  being  generally 
conceded  to  be  insufficient  for  his  needs — he 
has  the  privilege  of  choosing  his  extra  suits 
from  among  the  wardrobes  of  all  the  animals 
below  him  in  the  scale  of  creation.  Looking 
about  in  his  own  sub-kingdom  —  that  of  the 
vertebrates — he  finds  little,  if  any,  use  for  the 
scaly  suits  of  the  fishes,  nor  can  he  appropriate 
the  feathered  suits  of  the  birds  to  any  extent 
beyond  that  of  ornament.  Thus  he  finds  him- 
self, for  the  most  part,  restricted  to  the  hairy 
and  woolly  quadrupeds  for  the  materials  which 
are  destined  to  supply  the  deficiencies  in  his 
wardrobe. 

History,  in  the  records  it  gives  us  of  the 
early  Christian  monks,  tells  us  that  Thomas 
a-Becket,  and  others  like  him,  wore  the  hair- 
cloth shirt  until  it  was  a  loathsome  muss  of 
vermin ;  that  this  example  was  imitated  by  the 
common  people ;  and  that  the  Saracens,  about 
the  eighth  century,  were  the  first  to  introduce 
into  Europe  "the  often  -  changed  and  often- 
washed  undergarment,  which  still  passes  among 


The  Uses  and  Abuses  of  Dress.      173 

ladies    under  its  old  Arabic    name "  (Dr.   Dra- 
per). 

Under  sucli  circumstances  it  is  easy  to  see 
that  the  chemise  was  a  godsend  ;  but  ten  cen- 
turies have  brought  us  a  step  further,  and  to- 
day the  best-dressed  woman  is  not  the  woman 
who  wears  a  chemise.  That  garment  has  had 
its  day.  Keasou  and  common-sense  alike  reject 
it  and  the  hair-cloth  garment  which  it  super- 
seded, while  they  substitute  for  its  bagginess  a 
neat  and  comely-fitting  garment  of  wool  which 
covers  the  entire  body  as  if  it  grew  there.  It 
is  not,  like  the  chemise,  gathered  up  into  a 
superfluous  mass  of  drapery  round  the  waist, 
whose  dimensions  that  garment  needlessly  in- 
creases ;  it  is  not,  like  it,  forever  slipping  off 
one  shoulder;  and  it  does  not,  like  it,  leave  the 
body  exposed  to  the  harsh  vicissitudes  of  cli- 
mate. On  the  contrary,  it  is  everywhere  adapt- 
ed and  fitted  to  the  form  ;  it  cannot  slip  off 
one  shoulder,  for  all  hygienic  law^s  require  that 
the  whole  body  be  uniformly  covered,  the 
shoulders  just  like  all  other  parts,  and  it 
shields  us  from  sudden  climatic  changes  as 
tenderly  as  it  did  the  lambs  from  whose  fleeces 
it  came.     The  best  thought  of  the  day  has  been 


174       The  Uses  and  Abuses  of  Dress. 

devoted,  in  large  measure,  to  this  reform  in 
woman's  nnder-clotliing,  as  well  as  to  one  in 
her  outer  clothing. 

For  years  the  gentlemen  physicians  have 
been  ntteriug  their  protests  against  the  abuses 
which  woman  was  heaping  upon  her  body  by 
means  of  her  errors  of  dress.  What  I  have  in 
previous  chapters  quoted  to  you  from  Dr.  Wil- 
lard  Parker  and  Dr.  T.  G.  Thomas,  of  New 
York,  and  from  the  late  Dr.  Edward  H.  Clark, 
of  Boston — three  names  among  the  highest  in 
the  medical  profession — are  but  a  few  of  the 
many  emphatic  utterances  upon  this  point. 

But  what  could  they  do  more  ?  They  never 
had  to  wear  the  abominable  gear,  and  of  course 
they  were  incompetent  to  criticise  or  amend  it 
in  detail.  They  could  only  reiterate,  in  a  help- 
less way,  what  our  gentlemen  professors  in  the 
Woman's  Medical  College  used  to  say  as  often 
as  a  woman  came  to  the  clinical  lecture  to  be 
examined  for  chest  or  other  diseases  which  re- 
quired her  disrobing,  "  Why  will  women  tie  so 
many  miserable  strings  round  their  bodies !" 

Meanwhile,  the  world  was  moving,  and  it 
had  come  to  see  that  a  man  doctor  was  not 
good   for  much  unless   he  was  a   good   nurse. 


The  Uses  and  Abuses  of  Dress.      175 

So  it  finally  came  to  think  it  possible  that, 
since  women  were  very  good  nurses  without  a 
medical  education,  they  might  be  still  better 
nurses  with  such  an  education,  and  the  women 
began  to  go  to  Medical  College.  It  only  re- 
quired one  look  at  the  internal  mechanism  of 
their  bodies  in  the  dissecting-room  to  show 
them  the  inevitable  results  of  putting  strings 
or  bands  or  bones  around  these  bodies ;  and  so, 
little  by  little,  out  of  their  convictions,  added 
to  those  of  earnest,  thinking  women  in  Boston, 
there  grew  the  dress-reform  movement,  which, 
like  many  other  lights  which  rose  in  the  East, 
has  spread  across  the  continent  even  to  Cali- 
fornia, shedding  its  beams  abroad  in  all  the 
prominent  cities  of  New  England  and  many  of 
the  Western  cities. 

In  ISTew  York  city  it  has  its  headquarters 
only  next  door  to  that  emporium  of  fashion, 
Madame  Demorest's  establishment,  so  that  it 
really  begins  to  look  as  if  Eashion  herself  was 
preparing  to  become  hygienic,  and  so  common- 
sensible. 

The  principles  of  this  reform  are  natural 
principles,  and  are  concisely  stated  as  follows: 

"  First — That    the   vital   organs   in    central 


176       The  Uses  and  Abases  of  Dress. 

regions  of  the  body  should  be  allowed  unim- 
peded action. 

"  Second — That  a  uniform  temperature  of 
the  body  should  be  preserved. 

^'  Third — That  weight  should  be  reduced  to 
a  minimum. 

"Fourth — That  the  shoulders,  and  not  the 
hips,  should  form  the  base  of  support." 

Soon  after  the  inauguration  of  this  reform 
the  prominent  thinkers  among  the  women  of 
Boston  and  New  York  co-operated  in  arrang- 
ing for  a  course  of  free  lectures  upon  "  The 
Effect  of  Misapplied  Clothing  upon  the  Health 
of  Women,"  to  be  given  by  women  physicians, 
simultaneously,  in  the  two  cities.  The  leading 
churches  in  both  cities  were  placed  at  their  dis- 
posal, and  the  press  reported  the  lectures  at 
length  in  the  daily  papers. 

Thus  was  the  leaven  introduced  into  the 
immense  lump  of  prejudice  which  still  blinds 
the  eyes  of  so  many,  many  women.  Some  one 
has  said,  "  There  is  nothing  so  painful  to  hu- 
man nature  as  the  pain  of  a  new  idea ;  it  is,  as 
the  comm.on  people  say,  *  so  upsettin'.' "  You 
remember  how  I  "  upset "  the  woman  at  the 
dispensary  to  whom   I  ventured  to  suggest  an 


The  Uses  cmd  Abuses  of  Dress.      177 

external  application  of  soap  and  water  to  her 
entire  person.  I  have  to  confess  to  you,  even 
now,  that  it  is  almost  as  ''  upsettin' "  to  a 
woman  to  ask  her  to  give  up  her  chemise  and 
drawers  for  a  single,  whole  garment,  which  has 
all  the  uses  and  none  of  the  abuses  of  the  two, 
as  it  was  to  that  poor  woman  to  be  asked  to 
take  a  bath. 

Yet  I  do  not  lose  my  faith  in  the  ultimate 
success  of  the  movement.  All  reforms  must 
pass  through  at  least  three  periods  on  their 
way  to  acceptation,  namely:  the  stage  of  rid- 
icule, the  stage  of  abuse,  and  the  stage  of  in- 
difference. 

Mr.  Emerson,  in  his  essay  on  Beauty,  says: 
"Many  a  good  experiment,  born  of  good  sense, 
and  destined  to  succeed,  fails  only  because  it 
is  offensively  sudden.  I  suppose  the  Parisian 
milliner,  who  dresses  the  world  from  her  im- 
perious boudoir,  will  know  how  to  reconcile 
the  Bloomer  costume  to  the  eye  of  mankind, 
and  make  it  triumphant  over  Punch  himself, 
by  interposing  the  just  gradations." 

Surely,  ten  centuries  for  the  chemise  is  a 
warrantable  gradation  to  its  successor,  the  com- 
bination garment,  which,  in  its  varied  nomeu- 


178       The  Uses  and  Abuses  of  Dy^ess. 

clatiire  of  "  chemiloon,"  "  chemilette,"  and 
"cliemille,"  still  retains  enough  of  its  Arabic 
etymology  to  give  it  the  dignity  of  age.  Nor 
is  it  by  a  sudden  leap  that  we  have  come  to 
this  happy  combination.  The  first  gradation 
from  the  chemise  toward  it  is  to  be  found  in 
the  "pantalettes,"  which  less  than  half  a  cen- 
tury ago  were  the  only  coverings  worn  by 
feminine  legs,  in  their  individual  capacity,  ex- 
cept the  hose.  These  bantam-cliicken  attach- 
ments were  tied  around  the  leg,  below  the 
knee,  by  a  string  which  fastened  l)otli  them 
and  the  stocking,  leaving  the  entire  surface  of 
the  extremities  from  there  to  the  waist  ex- 
posed, except  so  far  as  the  curtains  hung  about 
them,  in  the  form  of  chemise  and  skirts,  offered 
a  show  of  protection.  Think  of  wading  through 
snow-drifts  in  that  attire  !  Yet  women  did  so, 
and  it  was  considered  quite  the  proper  thing. 
The  next  gradation  was  from  "  pantalettes  "  to 
drawers,  which  are  fastened  about  the  waist  by 
a  band  or  a  string,  and  which  are  now  the  rule 
in  the  feminine  wardrobe,  where  they  were 
the  exception  a  quarter  of  a  century  since.  In- 
deed, they  are  still  the  exception  in  some  parts 


The  Uses  and  Abuses  of  Dress.       179 

of  Germany  and  in  secluded  country  towns  in 
the  United  States. 

Now,  all  that  the  dress-reform  aims  at  is 
to  combine  the  chemise  and  drawers  in  one 
garment  which  shall  cover  the  body  and  its 
extremities  like  another  skin,  and  thus  dispense 
with  any  bands  or  strings  either  about  the  ex- 
tremities or  the  body.  By  this  means  all  su- 
perfluous folds  about  the  waist  are  dispensed 
with,  and  thus  its  symmetry  is  preserved.  Fur- 
thermore, all  the  interference  with  the  circu- 
lation of  the  blood  through  its  various  channels 
is  avoided;  for  it  is  impossible  for  this  to  go 
on  as  it  should  in  any  body  which  is  girt  about 
by  bands,  or  whose  extremities  have  strings 
tied  about  them  tightly  enough  to  keep  either 
the  hose  or  any  other  garments  adjusted.  An 
additional  inducement  to  tliose  who  regard 
economy  is  the  securing  of  one  "piece,"  in 
place  of  two,  for  the  laundry. 

This  one  principle  is  adhered  to  in  all 
the  undero^arments  and  in  all  the  overojarments 
of  the  reform  costume,  namely :  the  unity  which 
dispenses  with  waist-bands,  instead  of  the  dual- 
ity which  renders  them  indispensable,  and  thus 
puts  restrictions  upon  that   most  important  of 


180       The  Uses  and  Abuses  of  Dress. 

all  muscles,  the  diaphragm.  It  asks  you  to  do 
nothing,  by  way  of  change  in  costume,  which 
shall  make  you  grotesque,  or  even  conspicuous, 
among  your  companions,  except  in  the  results 
which  are  sure  to  follow  its  adoption,  by  way 
of  a  fresher  bloom  on  your  cheeks,  or  clearer 
light  in  your  eyes,  and  greater  vigor  to  your 
whole  carriage,  than  they  can  ever  enjoy  who 
persist  in  fettering  themselves  in  ways  which 
have  proved,  beyond  all  question,  pernicious. 

Of  the  close-fitting  undergarments,  there 
may  be  one  of  wool,  worn  next  the  person,  ot 
light  and  airy  quality  for  summer,  and  of  close, 
warm  texture  for  winter.  Over  this  may  be 
worn  a  second,  of  cotton  or  linen,  which  can 
be  ornamented  at  3^our  discretion,  and  which 
can  be  so  neatly  and  elegantly  fitted  to  your 
person  as  to  more  than  compensate  you  for 
the  relinquishment  of  that  instrument  of  tor- 
ture and  bane  of  woman  s  health — the  corset. 
Hygeia,  the  goddess  of  health,  admits  no  such 
foe  to  health  as  this  into  her  wardrobe.  There 
was  a  time  when  this  horrible  structure  was 
even  applied  to  babies  and  little  girls.  That 
day  has  passed,  and,  as  a  rule,  modern  mothers 
are  accustomed  to    dress    their    little    girls    in 


The  Uses  and  Abuses  of  Dress.       181 

accordance  with  the  requirements  of  health, 
and  so  in  accordance  with  the  design  of  the 
dress-reform.  Let  the  world  rejoice  and  take 
hope  in  the  fact  that  some  of  them  already  see 
that  the  grown  girl  needs  to  make  no  change 
in  the  mode  of  applying  her  clothing  when  she 
steps  from   childhood   to  womanhood. 

So  much  for  the  general  principles  relating 
to  undergarments.  For  further  details  and  for 
patterns  you  are  referred  to  the  various  agen- 
cies already  established  in  our  principal  cities. 
That  in  Boston  is  at  ^\  Hamilton  place.  That 
in  New  York  is  at  6  East  Fourteenth  street. 
Other  addresses  or  patterns  may  be  obtained 
from  these  sources. 

We  come  now  to  the  consideration  of  the 
outer  garments.  Here  the  question  is  largely 
one  of  ornamentation ;  for  the  claims  of  com- 
fort and  decency  are,  for  the  most  part,  satis- 
fied by  the  system  of  undergarments  already 
advocated. 

''  We  must  have  poetry  and  art  in  woman's 
dress;  but  poetry  and  art  are  never  at  odds 
with  common -sense  and  vigorous  health.... 
Fashion  must  be  respected,  so  far  as  the  pain- 
ful   impressions    produced    upon    the    eye    by 


182       The  Uses  and  Abuses  of  Dress. 

marked  and  obvious  departures  from  her  arbi- 
trary rules ;  but  fashion  is  seldom  a  good  physi- 
ologist."— i^eio  York  Tribune. 

The  hygiene  of  dress  does  not  demand  the 
renunciation  of  drapery.  The  artistic  eye  will 
not  yet  accept  even  the  masculine  statue  in 
trowsers,  as  proved  by  the  outcry  against  the 
statue  of  Mr.  Lincoln  in  the  Union  Square 
park,  New  York,  and  others  of  similar  angu- 
larity, elsewhere  located.  Much  less,  then,  will 
it  tolerate  either  the  feminine  statue  or  the 
feminine  personality  divested  of  all  the  grace 
which  it  has  come  to  associate  with  '^  robes 
loosely  flowing."  It  only  asks  woman  to  bring 
her  reason  and  her  common-sense  to  her  aid 
in  the  matter  of  the  selection  and  adjustment 
of  her  attire,  in  conformity  with  the  following 
considerations : 

First,  health.  I  cannot  do  better  here  than 
to  call  your  attention  to  a  sensible  little  manual 
entitled  "  Hints  on  Dress,"  by  Ethel  C.  Gale, 
published  in  1872  in  the  Putnam's  "Handy- 
Book  "  series.  This  is  what  she  says  on  the 
corset  subject,  under  the  health  consideration : 

"  The  idea  that  a  disproportionately  small 
waist  is  beautiful  is  one  of  the  immature  and 


The  Uses  and  Abuses  of  Dress.      183 

epidemic  fancies  of  sweet  sixteen.  Once  let  it 
enter  a  school,  and,  in  spite  of  physiology  and 
the  teachers,  it  spreads  like  the  measles.  Said 
an  elderly  gentleman  one  day,  '  Where  do  the 
girls  get  such  perverted  notions  of  beauty? 
Here  were  my  own  daughters,  never  were 
taught  anything  of  that  sort  at  home,  but  when 
they  returned  from  school  they  were  drawn  up 
in  packs  of  torturing  bones,  till  they  looked  as 
pinched  and  starved  as  weasels.  Couldn't  walk 
forty  rods  without  fainting ;  couldn't  take  a 
long  breath;  couldn't  laugh;  couldn't  do  any- 
thing but  look  as  miserable  as  if  they  were  on 
their  way  to  the  gallows  !  I-  told  the  girls  I'd 
disown  'em  if  they  didn't  take  the  things  oiF; 
and  so  they  did,  and  soon  looked  like  them- 
selves again.' " 

Hero  follow  some  pertinent  suggestions  con- 
cerning the  clothing  of  the  feet,  which  you  will 
do  well  to  read  and  heed.  There  has  been 
Buch  a  marked  improvement  in  the  matter  of 
women's  foot-attire  during  the  last  decade  that 
they  are  inexcusable,  to-day,  if  they  allow  their 
personal  comfort  or  their  health  to  be  inter- 
fered with  for  want  of  suitably-made  shoes  or 
by  reason  of  misapplied  hose.     The  dress-reform 


184       The  Uses  and  Abuses  of  Dress. 

has  perfected  a  mode  of  keeping  the  hose  ad- 
justed so  that  no  bands,  elastic  or  otherwise, 
are  allowed,  either  on  the  extremities  or  about 
the  waist.  This  disposes  of  one  of  the  common- 
est causes  of  cold  feet  and  aching  heads.  It 
also  provides  a  shoe  whose  sole  is  shaped  like 
the  sole  of  the  natural  foot,  and  whose  heel  ia 
so  low  and  so  broad  that  it  cannot  tip  the  wear- 
er's spinal  column  from  its  natural  line;  thus 
disposing  of  one  of  the  commonest  causes  of 
aching  backs.  French  heels  may  fit  French 
feet,  and  Chinese  heels  may  fit  Chinese  feet, 
but  the  American  woman  had  best  wear  home- 
made shoes. 

You  should  also  be  mindful  of  the  fact  that 
the  slipper  should  be  limited  to  the  dressing, 
room  during  cold  weather.  The  change  from 
the  high  widking-shoe  to  the  slipper,  for  gen- 
eral home  wear,  leaves  too  much  of  the  foot 
with  comparatively  less  covering  than  any  other 
part  of  the  body,  and  is  a  common  cause  of 
sore  throats. 

Second  only  to  health  in  importance  among 
the  essentials  for  being  well  dressed  is  neatness. 
Upon  this  point  Miss  Gale  says,  very  aptly  : 

"We   often    see    much -bedraggled   clothes 


The  Uses  and  Abuses  of  Dress.       185 

worn  by  women  who  consider  themselves  en^ 
titled  to  be  called  ladies.  But,  in  whatever 
circle  she  may  move,  we  feel  certain  that  the 
woman  cannot  be  self-respecting  who  can  trail 
a  long  skirt  across  a  muddy  street,  entailing 
not  only  the  ruin  of  the  dress,  but  the  certain 
bedaubing  of  stockings  and  underclothes,  with 
which  the  soiled  petticoats  must  come  in  con- 
tact. ..  .Another  point  in  which  neatness  is 
often  offended  is  in  wearing  *  about  house' 
shabby  finery,  rather  than  neater  and  plainer 
dresses.  There  are  many  who  seem  to  imagine 
that,  when  wearing  an  antiquated,  spotted,  and 
even  ragged  silk,  they  are  better  dressed  than 
when  attired  in  something  that,  though  whole 
and  clean,  is  of  plainer  fashion  and  material. 
....  Infinitely  better  does  a  woman  clad  in  a 
simple,  but  fresh  and  tasteful,  calico,  deserve 
the  epithet  well-dressed,  than  one  attired  in 
the  most  expensive  materials,  if  these,  by  long 
use,  or  from  any  other  cause,  have  become 
soiled  or  frayed. 

''  The  same  is  true,  in  even  greater  degree, 
in  reo-ard  to  underclothes.     The  most  elaborate 

o 

needlework  only  adds   to  the  disgust  one  feels 
if  the  varments  it  adorns  are  begrimed  or  torn; 


186       The  Uses  and  Abuses  of  Dress. 

while  those  of  plainest  fashion,  if  clean  and 
whole,  or  neatly  mended,  are  always  pleasing 
to  the  eye. 

"  The  third  essential  to  good  dressing  ia 
hecomingness. 

"  One  may  be  attired  in  the  most  healthful 
of  costumes,  and  both  person  and  every  article 
of  clothing  may  be  in  the  most  spotless  condi- 
tion, and  3^et  shock  the  eye  of  taste. 

"  To  be  well  dressed,  one  must  always  take 
into  consideration  the  complexion,  age,  features 
and  figure  of  the  wearer,  and  the  harmony  of 
the  different  parts  of  the  costume.  Thus,  the 
brunette  cannot  wear  the  delicate  shades  so 
beautiful  for  the  blonde;  and  the  woman  of 
sixty  becomes  ridiculous  if  tricked  out  with 
the  fluttering  ribbons  and  bright  colors  appro- 
priate at  sixteen.  The  sylph  who  scarcely 
turns  the  scales  at  a  hundred  pounds  cannot 
carry  the  flowing  mantles  which  have  become 
necessary  to  obscure  the  too-expansive  outlines 
of  the  matron  whose  position  in  a  carriage  ia 
Bufiiciently  indicated  by  the  condition  of  the 
springs.  The  woman  whose  sharp,  hatchet-like 
features  seem  fashioned  to  hew  her  way  through 
the  world  should  not  follow  the  Japanese  style 


The  Uses  and  Abuses  of  Dress.      187 

of  hair-dressing ;  nor  should  the  woman  whose 
head  resembles  a  large  red  cabbage  deck  her- 
self in  big  butterfly  bows  of  scarlet  ribbon,  a 
jaunty  little  round  hat,  and  a  chignon  emu- 
lating the  proportions  of  the  rotunda  of  our 
national  capitol." 

The  fourth  point  to  be  considered  is,  "  What 
we  can  honestly  afford  " ;  the  fifth,  ^'  Our  sta- 
tion in  life " ;  and  the  sixth  and  last,  ^'  Our 
present  occupation." 

It  will  be  quite  obvious  to  you  all,  dear 
girls,  that  all  these  points  are  worthy  of  your 
faithful  consideration  ;  and  let  me  exhort  you 
especially  to  bear  in  mind  that  it  is  just  as 
much  your  duty  to  your  immediate  family  cir- 
cle to  always  appear  at  breakfast  neatly,  be- 
comingly and  suitably  attired  as  it  is  incumbent 
upon  you  to  always  look  your  best  for  the 
evening  sociable ;  nay,  it  is  a  more  imperative 
duty :  for  to  whom  do  you  owe  such  high 
honor  as  to  the  parents  who  preside  over  the 
home  ? 

1  find  it  not  uncommon  for  young  ladies  to 
appear  at  breakfast-table  with  the  hair  in  crimp- 
ing-pins  and  curl-papers;  and  I  always  decide 
that  if  I  were  a  young  man  in  search  of  a  wife^ 


188       The  Uses  and  Abuses  of  Dress. 

I  should  turn  my  back  upon  all  such  girls  as 
that.  No  woman  should  ever  pour  my  cofiee 
in  the  morning  who  would  take  more  pains  to 
look  her  prettiest  for  the  evening  caller  than 
she  would  for  rae.  That  is  what  I  should  feel 
if  I  were  a  wife-hunter. 

Let  me  further  exhort  you,  dear  girls,  to 
keep  the  buttons  and  button -holes  on  your 
gowns  in  good  working  order.  There  ia  hardly 
one  more  common  or  more  repulsive  sight  than 
that  presented  by  a  pinned-up  gown,  with  here 
and  there  a  button  missing.  I,  as  physician, 
have  had  sume  sanguinary  experiences  in  this 
matter  while  trying  to  minister  to  the  needs  of 
fainting  girls.  Of  course,  when  a  girl  faints 
I  go  for  her  corset-strings — for  she  who  faints 
out  of  corsets  is  the  exception — and  I  have 
more  than  once  stabbed  my  fingers  most  wo- 
fully  with  these  abominable  pins,  on  my  way 
to  the  corset-strings.  Please  bear  in  mind  that 
this  is  your  first  service  to  be  rendered  on  such 
occasions,  namely:  to  cut  the  corset -strings. 
That  is  far  more  essential  than  to  run  for  the 
camphor-bottle.  The  next  service  is  to  open 
the  windows ;  the  next  is  to  sprinkle  a  few 
drops  of  cold  water  in  the  face ;  while  all  the 


The  Uses  and  Abuses  of  Dress.       189 

time  jou  must  send  the  curious  away,  and 
allow  no  one  to  remain  in  tlie  room,  or  near 
the  patient,  to  vitiate  the  air  for  her.  Give 
her  plenty  of  air  and  plenty  of  chest- room, 
and  nature  will  do  the  rest,  in  most  cases. 

And  now  I  have  a  word  to  say  to  you  upon 
the  subject  of  ear-rings.  Do  you  not  honestly 
think,  down  in  your  real  hearts,  that  it  is  about 
as  much  a  barbarity  to  punch  holes  in  the  ears 
for  the  setting  of  jewels  as  it  is  to  punch  them 
in  the  nose  for  that  purpose  ?  Yet  you  call 
yourselves  civilized^  and  the  nose-punchers  bar- 
barous. For  one,  1  see  no  difference,  except 
as  a  matter  of  taste,  concerning  w^hich,  you 
know,  there  can  be  no  fair  discussion,  so  capri- 
cious is  that  sense  we  name  "taste'' — the  same 
sense  which  leads  the  women  of  one  nation  to 
tattoo  the  chin,  while  the  men  pierce  the  lips 
and  insert  a  double-headed  sleeve-button  into 
the  aperture. 

We,  Christians  (?),  punch  holes  in  our  ears 
and  dangle  bangles  on  our  wrists,  and  send  out 
missionaries  to  tell  the  people  who  are  a  score 
of  centuries  or  more  older  than  we  that  they 
are  heathens,  because  they  jingle  bangles  on 
their  ankles  and  hang  jewels  in  their  noses  ! 


190       The  Uses  and  Abuses  of  Dress. 

We  are  wont  to  speak  of  the  "heathen 
Greeks,"  but  they  never  professed  to  believe 
they  were  created  in  the  image  of  their  most 
honored  deity  without  striving  to  be  like  the 
same.  They  did  not  claim  to  be  created  in  the 
image  of  the  goddess  Hygeia,  and  then  seek, 
by  hideous  and  unnatural  contrivances,  to  de- 
stroy the  harmony  and  symmetry  of  that  image. 
They  did  not  pray  to  be  delivered  from  sick- 
ness and  sudden  death,  and  then  rush  into  fol- 
lies that  are  certain  to  bring  one,  if  not  both. 
They  did  not  utter  daily  the  words,  ''Lead  us 
not  into  temptation,"  and  immediately  after- 
ward rush  into  it.  No, .  Hygeia  stood  ever  to 
them  as  a  beneficent  divinity,  providing  against 
disease,  rather  than  as  a  physician  vainly  at- 
tempting to  cure  that  which  should  never  have 
been  contracted.  She  stood  then,  as  she  stands 
now,  the  teacher  of  the  laws  of  health. 

In  Landor's  ''Imaginary  Conversations"  be- 
tween some  of  these  "heathen  Greeks"  occurs 
the  following,  between  Aspasia  and  Cleone  : 

"  Epimedea  has  been  with  me  in  my  cham- 
ber. She  asked  me  whether  the  women  of 
Ionia  had  left  off  wearing  ear-rings.  I  answered 
that  I  believed   they   always   bad  worn  them, 


The  Uses  and  Abuses  of  Dress.      191 

and  that  they  were  introduced  by  the  Persians, 
who  had  received  them  from  nations  more  re- 
mote. *And  do  you  think  yourself  too  young,' 
Baid  she,  '  for  such  an  ornament  ? '  producing, 
at  the  same  time,  a  massy  pair,  inlaid  with  the 
largest  emeralds.  *Alas!  alas!'  said  she,  *  your 
mother  neglected  you  strangely.  There  is  no 
hole  in  the  ear,  right  or  left !  AYe  can  mend 
that,  however :  I  know  a  woman  who  will  bring 
us  the  prettiest  little  pan  of  charcoal,  with  the 
prettiest  little  steel  rod  in  it;  and,  before  you 
can  cry  out,  one  ear  lets  light  through.  These 
are  yours,'  said  she. . .  .^  Generous  Epimedea  !' 
said  I,  '  do  not  say  things  that  pain  me.  I 
will  accept  a  part  of  the  present ;  I  will  wear 
these  beautiful  emeralds  on  one  arm.  Think- 
ing of  nailing  them  in  my  ears,  you  resolved 
to  make  me  steady ;  but  I  am  unwilling  they 
should  become  dependencies  of  Attica.'  *  All 
our  young  women  wear  them  ;  the  goddesses, 
too-'  *  The  goddesses  are  in  the  right,'  said 
I — '  their  ears  are  marble ;  but  I  do  not  believe 
any  one  of  them  would  tell  us  that  women 
were  made  to  be  the  settings  of  pearls  and 
emeralds.' 

"  I  had  taken   one,  and  was  about  to  kiss 


192       The  Uses  and  Abuses  of  Dress. 

her,  when  she  said  :  '  Do  not  leave  me  an  odd 
ear-ring ;  put  the  other  in  the  hair.'  '  Epime- 
dea,'  said  I,  ^  I  have  made  a  vow  never  to  wear 
on  the  head  anything  but  one  single  flower, 
one  single  wheat-ear,  green  or  yellow,  and  ivy 
or  vine-leaves.  ..  .Our  national  dress,  very  dif- 
ferent from  the  dresses  of  barbarous  nations,  is 
not  the  invention  of  the  ignorant  or  the  slave ; 
but  the  sculptor,  the  painter  and  the  poet  have 
studied  how  best  to  adorn  the  most  beautiful 
objects  of  their  fancies  and  contemplations. 
The  Indians,  who  believe  that  human  pains  and 
sufferings  are  pleasing  to  the  Deity,  make  in- 
cisions in  their  bodies  and  insert  in  them  im- 
perishable colors.  They  also  adorn  the  ears 
and  noses  and  foreheads  of  their  gods.  These 
were  the  ancestors  of  the  Egyptians.  We  chose 
handsomer  and  better-tempered  ones  for  our 
worship,  but  retained  the  same  decoration  in 
our  sculpture,  and  to  a  degree  which  the  sobri- 
ety of  the  Egyptian  had  merely  reduced  and 
chastened.  Hence,  we  retain  the  only  mark  ot 
barbarism  which  dishonors  our  national  dress — 
the  use  of  ear-rings.  If  our  statues  should  all 
be  broken  by  some  convulsion  of  the  earth, 
would  it  be  believed    by  future   ages   that,   in 


The  Uses  and  Abuses  of  Dress.      193 

the  country  and  age  of  Sophocles,  the  women 
tore  holes  in  their  ears,  to  let  rings  into,  as  the 
more  brutal  of  peasants  do  with  the  snouts  of 
sows  ? '  " 

I  beg  you  to  note  Aspasia's  resolution 
"never  to  wear  on  the  head  anything  but  one 
single  flower,  one  single  wheat-ear,  green  or 
yellow,  and  ivy  or  vine-leaves,"  for  neither  art 
nor  fashion  ever  has  or  ever  can  invent  so 
appropriate  an  ornament  for  the  human  head 
as  this. 

Nor  can  all  the  combined  efforts  of  Parisian 
perfumers  ever  supply  you  with  any  perfumes 
which  you  can  so  safely  carry  about  you  as 
those  of  natural  flowers. 

Be  guarded,  I  beg  you,  in  your  use  of  ar- 
tificial perfumes.  Let  them  never  be  so  loud 
as  to  be  intrusive.  Loud  perfumes  and  loud 
costumes  and  loud  manners  generally  go  in 
company  with  each  other,  and  each  and  all 
indicate  a  lack  of  that  refinement  which  marks 
the  real  lady. 

For  special  occasions  you  require  special 
suits.  For  mountain  climbing  or  for  rambles 
by  the  seashore  nothing  could  be  better  than 
the  short  flannel  dress,  with  drawers  to  match. 


194:       The  Uses  and  Abuses  of  Dress. 

For  promenade  nothing  could  be  better 
than  the  Princess  walking- dress,  minus  the 
train,  with  the  neat  and  comfortable  walking- 
jacket.  The  train  is  elegant  in  its  place — in 
the  spacious  drawing-room  or  on  the  platform ; 
but  for  a  woman  e7i  promenade  to  be  ever 
restricted  to  one  hand,  because  her  other  is 
detailed  to  carry  her  train,  argues  a  defect  in 
her  sense  of  "  the  eternal  fitness  of  things." 

Shawls  are  unfit  for  the  promenade,  because 
they  restrict  the  free  use  of  the  arras  in  walk- 
ing, and  should  be  reserved  for  driving,  where 
extra  wraps  are  always  needed.  For  the  same 
reason  the  muff  is  objectionable  as  a  part  of 
the  walking-costume,  and  should  be  reserved, 
with  the  shawl,  for  the  drive. 

There  can  be  no  real  grace  of  motion  for 
the  woman  who  walks  with  her  hands  in  a 
muff;  nor  does  she  secure  that  full  expansion 
of  the  chesty  and  so  that  full  benefit  of  a  walk 
in  the  open  air,  which  are  insured  when  the 
shoulders  are  thrown  back  and  the  arms  left 
to  assist,  as  Nature  meant  they  should,  in  the 
act  of  walking.  We  are  but  quadrupeds,  privi- 
leged, by  reason  of  very  slight  variations  in 
the  arrangement  of  our  skeletons,  to  walk  with 


The  Uses  and  Abuses  of  Dress.      195 

Bpines  erect,  ir.  tead  of  horizontal;  but  this 
erect  position,  while  it  enables  us  to  loc^k 
down  upon  most  of  the  other  quadrupeds  after 
we  emerge  from  the  quadrupedal  manner  of 
progression  with  which  we  inaugurate  our  walk 
through  life,  by  no  means  leaves  ns  independ- 
ent of  our  upper  extremities  for  purposes  of 
locomotion. 

The  sealskins  and  other  skins  which  go  to 
make  muffs  had  much  better  be  put  into  the 
form  of  gloves  and  mittens,  and  the  same  skins, 
which  custom  has  wrapped  about  the  throat, 
are  much  more  needed  about  the  feet  and  an- 
kles than  there.  We  invite  many  a  sore  throat 
by  our  pernicious  habit  of  wearing  furs  about 
the  neck  till  it  is  in  a  free  perspiration  from 
exercise,  and  then  throwing  them  off  in  the 
church  or  other  public  place,  so  that  the  tem- 
perature is  suddenly  reduced.  A  pretty  bit  of 
lace  or  of  ribbon  or  of  knitted  zephyr  is  as 
much  protection  as  a  young  lady  in  good  health 
requires,  in  our  climate,  about  the  neck. 

Finally,  I  beg  you  to  strive  to  dress  in  such 
quiet  ways,  when  out  on  promenade,  and  on  all 
ordinary  occasions,  that  you  shall  not  be  con- 
spicuous by  reason  of  your  clothes.     It  is  aptly 


196       The  Uses  and  Abuses  of  Dress. 

said  that  the  best-dressed  persons  in  any  as- 
sembly are  those  who  have  impressed  us  so 
much  more  by  their  good  manners  than  by 
their  good  clothes  that  we  cannot  remember 
what  they  wore  when  the  occasion  is  past.  I 
Lave  met  young  ladies  in  society  and  on  the 
promenade  who  made  a  powerful  impression  of 
rnffles.  I  could  never  afterward  recall  any- 
thing above  this  overpowering  sense  of  ruffles 
when  thinking  of  them. 

There  is  daily  opportunity  for  you  to  exer- 
cise moral  courage  in  this,  as  in  the  weightier 
details  of  life,  by  giving  your  preference  to 
such  modes  of  dress  as  are  consistent  with 
health  and  one's  daily  pursuits,  rather  than  by 
following  the  idle  caprices  of  fashion. 

"  Do  you  object  to  the  morning  wrapper  in 
the  breakfast-room  ?" 

By  no  means.  Only  let  it  be  clean  and 
whole,  and  worn  with  clean  collar  and  cuffs  or 
ruffs,  and  with  whole  shoes.  The  shoes  need 
not  be  as  thick  as  the  outdoor  walking-shoe, 
but  they  had  better  be  as  high,  for  the  cold 
weather.  Above  all  things,  do  not  wear  shabby 
shoes,  with  the  buttons  off  and  the  stockings 
exposed,  either  indoors  or  out. 


The  Uses  and  Abuses  of  Dress.       197 

I  have  seen  this  done  with  elegant  morning 
wrappers ;  and  the  same  ladies  habitually  ap- 
peared at  breakfast  with  the  hair  in  curl-papers 
or  crimping-pins. 

"  But  how  shall  we  keep  our  hands  warm 
without  muffs  ?'' 

In  the  same  way  your  brothers  do :  by 
warm  mittens  or  gloves.  You  can  get  very 
nice  seal-skin  gloves  for  the  money  which  a 
muff  costs.  I  observe  that  the  hand  which 
carries  the  train  never  gets  cold,  even  though 
covered  only  with  a  close-fitting  kid  glove — 
provided  that  glove  be  a  ^'  three-button "  of 
the  most  approved  shade. 

"  But  what  shall  we  do  with  all  our  pretty 
chemises  ?" 

Get  a  pattern  for  the  union  garment,  and 
make  the  chemises  and  drawers  over.  This  is 
very  easily  done.  Only  summon  up  half  the 
resolution  by  whicli  you  can  manage  to  make 
over  an  old  dress  so  as  to  make  it  appear  new 
and  "stylish,"  and  the  change  is  achieved  by 
which  you  substitute  "  an  ounce  of  prevention  " 
for  the  pounds  of  cure  which  you  will  have  to 
take  if  you  persist  in  hanging  skirts  on  your 


198       The  Uses  and  Abuses  of  Dress, 

hips  and  in  buttoning  or  tying  their  bands 
about  your  waists.  "  Where  there  is  a  will 
there  is  a  way " — and  a  woman'' s  will,  which  is 
proverbial,  both  for  determination  and  inven- 
tion, ought  not  in  so  easy  a  matter  to  fail. 


CHAPTER  XII. 

THE   MATE  AND  THE   HOME. 

"O  FORTUNATE,  O  liappy  day, 
When  a  new  household  finds  its  place 
Among  the  myriad  homes  of  earth, 
Like  a  new  star  just  sprung  to  birth 
And  rolled  on  its  harmonious  way 
Into  the  boundless  realms  of  space." 

— Longfellow  ("The  Hanging  of  the  Crane"). 

You  have  learned,  in  the  foregoing  chap- 
ters, that  no  single  life,  either  of  the  plant  or 
the  animal  world,  ever  fulfills  its  Creator's 
whole  design.  Such  is  the  lesson  of  physiol- 
ogy. It  matters  not  how  simple  the  organism 
or  how  lowly  the  rank  in  the  scale  of  creation, 
there  is  everywhere  and  always  the  dual  ele- 
ment, the  maternal  and  the  paternal  —  these 
twain  made  one — supplementing  and  complet- 
ing the  individual  incompleteness. 


200  The  Mate  and  the  Home. 

The  rose  is  never  a  perfect  rose  until,  bj 
its  marriage  of  stamens  and  pistil,  its  crowning 
work- — the  rearing  of  other  roses  —  becomes 
possible.  This  is  the  end  and  aim  of  all  mar- 
riage—  the  perpetuation  of  the  species  —  and 
every  new  marriage  implies  a  '^new  house- 
hold." There  is  no  moment  in  the  whole  life 
of  a  woman  which  is  so  big  with  possible  joy 
or  woe  as  that  one  which  decides  who  is  to  be 
her  mate  in  that  "  new  household " ;  and  if 
there  is  any  one  warning  which  I  would  im- 
press upon  your  hearts  and  souls  and  minds 
with  an  emphasis  which  shall  make  it  indelible, 
it  is  that  you  be  not  hasty  or  inconsiderate  in 
making  this  decision.  There  cannot,  by  any 
possibility  of  accumulation  of  misery,  como 
into  your  life  so  terrible  a  woe  as  that  which 
results  from  a  hasty,  precipitate  and  rash  mar- 
riage. The  most  forlorn  "  old  maid  "  that  lives 
now,  or  ever  has  lived,  or  ever  will  live,  is 
supremely  happy  in  comparison  with  her  who, 
like  the  beetles  in  summer-time,  has  rushed 
headlong  into  the  matrimonial  flame  and  been 
singed  for  life. 

As  I  have  already  told  you,  marriage  is 
the   ultimate  end  and  aim    of  every   life,  and 


The  Mate  and  the  Home.  201 

the  true  marriage  is  the  holiest  of  all  possible 
relationships.  It  is  of  God's  own  ordaining. 
Tlie  true  wife  and  mother  is  the  queen  among 
women — yea,  among  all  created  beings.  All 
men  honor  her,  and  are  ready  to  accord  her 
the  highest  place  in  creation.  Second  only  to 
her  is  she  who  has  had  the  courage  to  remain 
single  because  the  right  man  never  came ;  for 
I  am  of  those  who  believe  that  no  woman  is 
ever  single,  for  her  lifetime,  for  lack  of  the 
opportunity  to  marry  at  some  time  in  her  life; 
and  whenever  I  meet  an  ^'  old  maid,"  I  am 
ready  to  do  her  honor  for  living  up  to  the 
principle,  "77/ 6  hest^  or  rioneP'' 

Said  a  little  girl,  who  has  just  said  her 
"Seven  times  one,"  to  me,  "Auntie,  what  do 
you  want  I  should   be  when  I'm  a  woman  ? " 

Said  I,  "  I  would  like  to  see  you  just  such 
a  woman  as  your  dear  mamma,  w4th  a  good 
husband  and  some  very  nice  little  children,  all 
in  a  nice,  pleasant  home." 

"  Well,"  said  she,  "  I'll  get  a  husband  if  I 
can  find  a  good  one ;  and  if  I  can't,  I  w^on't 
have  any  ;   would  you,  auntie  ? " 

There,  dear  girls,  is  your  motto  for  your 
matrimonial  game.     You  can  find  nothing  bet- 


202  The  Mate  and  the  Home. 

ter  in  the  whole  range  of  literature.  "  The 
best,  or  none  !  " 

And  what  constitutes  "the  best"?  First, 
and  always,  the  healthiest  !  And  who  is  the 
healthiest  ?  First,  and  always,  the  most  tern.- 
perate  ;  and  Temperance,  you  remember,  means 
self-control.  The  young  man  who  smokes  has 
lost  his  self-control.  His  appetite  has  run  away 
with  him,  and  it  will  carry  him  to  other  forms 
of  intemperance  just  as  surely  as  night  follows 
day.     Beware  of  him  ! 

Temperance  is  personal  cleanliness  ;  is  mod- 
esty ;  is  quietness ;  is  reverence  for  one's  elders 
and  betters ;  is  deference  to  one's  mother  and 
sisters ;  is  gentleness ;  is  courage ;  is  the  with- 
holding from  aught  which  leads  to  excess  in 
daily  living ;  is  the  eating  and  drinking  only  of 
that  which  will  insure  the  best  body  which  the 
best  soul  is  to  inhabit — nay,  Temperance  is  all 
these,   and  more 

Let  me  tell  you  a  true  story.  I  know  a 
man  and  woman  who  took  a  sudden  fancy  to 
each  other  upon  their  first  meeting.  They  were 
both  old  enough  to  know  better,  but  they  rushed 
into  matrimony,  like  two  idiots,  on  a  six  weeks' 
acquaintance.      Of  course,   they   were   terribly 


The  Mate  and  the  Home.  203 

disappointed  in  each  other,  and  have  been  ter- 
ribly punished  for  their  folly.  They  had  never 
heard  of  each  other  till  they  met ;  they  knew 
nothing  of  each  other's  antecedents,  nor  any- 
thing of  each  other's  personal  habits,  likes  and 
dislikes,  caprices  or  principles,  or  lack  of  prin- 
ciples. 

The  man  is  eleven  years  older  than  the 
woman,  and  is  one  of  those  who  "  enjoy  poor 
health  "  to  such  an  extent  that  they  follow  up 
every  new  disease  until  they  know  and  experi- 
ence all  its  symptoms.  At  one  time  he  had 
five  different  doctors  prescribing  for  him  while 
he  was  attending  to  his  daily  occupation.  He 
would  take  medicines  by  the  wholesale,  but 
was  as  averse  to  taking  a  bath  as  the  woman, 
of  whom  I  told  you,  in  the  New  York  Dis- 
pensary. He  counted  his  pulse  at  every  odd 
chance  during  the  day,  and  looked  at  his  tonguo 
with  a  corresponding  devotion.  He  believed 
that  night  air  is  a  deadly  poison,  and  that  hu- 
man beings  should  shut  themselves  indoors  at 
sunset,  all  the  year  round ;  close  all  the  doors 
and  windows,  and  keep  them  closed  till  sunrise. 

The  woman  was  nineteen  at  the  time  they 
met.     She   had   never   known    anything   about 


204  The  Mate  and  the  Home. 

"poor  health,"  and  was  quite  unprepared  to 
unite  with  this  man  in  enjoying  it.  She  had 
always  been  accustomed  to  her  daily  bath,  and 
regarded  every  one  as  intolerably  filthy  who 
did  not  follow  her  example,  for  she  was  of  a 
very  intense  nature,  and  what  she  believed 
she  believed  with  an  overpowering  force  which 
tolerated  no  dissent  on  the  part  of  her  imme- 
diate associates.  In  short,  she  was  something, 
in  temperament,  like  what  is  implied  by  the 
term  "  bottled  lightning." 

Their  domestic  life  was  very  much  like 
tliat  of  the  cats  of  Kilkenny,  as  you  may  well 
suppose.  She  stormed,  and  took  her  baths, 
and  opened  the  windows.  He  cried,  took  no 
baths,  shut  the  windows,  and  called  the  doc- 
tors. There  is  no  law  of  man's  enactment  for 
the  punishment  of  such  intemperance  as  they 
were  guilty  of,  nor  is  an}^  needed.  They  broke 
God's  laws  of  the  eternal  fitness  of  things,  and 
God  has  punished  them  in  his  own  way;  and 
they  stand  to-day,  as  do  many  others  who  have 
done  likewise,  as  living  examples  of  what  men 
and  women  should  not  do. 

I  beg  you  all  to  take  warning,  and  do  not 
likewise.      Do    not    trust    yourself    and    your 


The  Mate  and  the  Home.  205 

whole  future  to  one  who  attracts  you  simply 
by  a  fair  exterior,  but  acquaint  yourself  with 
his  personal  habits,  his  faD:iily  antecedents,  his 
associations,  his  tastes  and  his  distastes,  his  be- 
liefs and  his  disbeliefs.  Hemember  that  the 
marriage  contract  binds  you  for  life  to  one 
who  is  to  be  to  you  like  another  self,  so  close 
is  the  marriage  relation,  and  you  can  no  more 
get  away  from  that  other  self,  if  he  prove  to 
be  odious  to  you,  than  you  can  escape  from 
your  own  self  if  you  make  yourself  odious. 
There  he  must  be,  day  after  day,  perhaps  one 
of  the  "unwashed,"  with  a  breath  horribly 
offensive,  either  by  reason  of  his  unwashed 
person  or  by  reason  of  the  use  of  tobacco  or 
of  rum,  ever  by  your  side,  "  till  death  do  you 
part." 

Ah,  my  dear  girls,  if  you  could  only  learn 
to  look  beyond  the  orange-blossoms  far  enough 
to  see  the  rue  which  so  soon  succeeds  them,  in 
too  many  cases,  you  would  learn  to  be  duly 
cautious  in  this  momentous  matter.  "  The 
hest,  or  none!^''  And  do  not  trust  your  own 
unaided  judgment,  but  give  your  whole  confi- 
dence to  your  mother,  or  to  her  who  stands  in 
her  place,  if  you   be   motherless ;   for  the  ex- 


206  The  Mate  and  the  Home. 

perience  of  twenty  years  or  more  is  of  untold 
value  in  a  woman's  ability  to  counsel  you  in 
this  respect. 

And  even  as  you  demand  ''  the  best "  in  the 
husband,  so  is  it  his  to  demand  "  the  best "  in 
the  wife.  The  best  man  is  he  who  will  look 
wisely  and  well  for  his  other  self.  To  win 
him  you  must  be  worthy  of  him;  and  to  be 
worthy  of  him  you  must  be,  like  him,  first  of 
all,  healthy,  and  temperate  in  all  things  in 
order  that  you  be  healthy.  You  must  be  cour- 
ageous enough  to  resist  every  temptation  to  go 
in  ways  which  your  better  self  rejects,  and  to 
even  be  unfashionable,  if  to  be  fashionable 
means  to  do  things  which  will  conflict  with 
God's  eternal  laws  for  your  well-being. 

You  must  be  self-reliant  and  self-control- 
ling,  for  the  exigencies  of  married  life  call  for 
these  qualities  in  the  highest  degree.  The 
hysterical  wife  may  tempt  the  best  man  to 
"fall  from  grace,"  for  he  is  mortal. 

You  must  be  prudent,  in  speech  as  in  ac- 
tion; for  to  be  prudent — provident — is  in  ail 
respects  opposed  to  thoughtlessness  or  heed- 
lessness, or  any  intemperate  word  or  deed. 
The   wise   woman   "  openeth   her   month   with 


The  Mate  and  the  Home.  207 

wisdom ;  and  in  her  tongue  is  the  law  of  kind- 
ness. She  looketh  well  to  the  ways  of  her 
household,  and  eateth  not  the  bread  of  idle- 
ness. Her  children  arise  up  and  call  her  bless- 
ed; her  husband  also,  and  he  praiseth  her" 
(Proverbs  xxxi). 

You  must  be  unselfish.  It  is  all  very  nice 
to  be  admired  and  courted,  and  to  have  him 
say  fair  and  flattering  words  to  you  along  with 
the  bouquets  and  sweetmeats;  but  these  are 
only  BO  many  little  preliminaries.  You  might 
as  well  understand,  in  the  beginning,  that  mar- 
riage requires  the  utmost  unselfishness  on  both 
sides,  and  that  each  is  to  find  his  and  her  great- 
est happiness  in  giving,  not  in  receiving.  I 
have  seen  some  sad  instances  of  the  grossest 
selfishness  in  homes  where  the  one  is  always 
giving  and  the  other  is  always  taking.  Some- 
times it  is  the  husband  who  gives  his  every 
thought  and  his  every  effort  to  an  exacting, 
selfish,  peevish  and  forever-discontented  woman. 
The  more  he  does  for  her  happiness,  the  more 
imhappy  she  becomes,  yet  he  carries  him- 
self serenely  over  all  the  ruggedness  of  her 
ways,  and  possesses  his  soul  in  patience.  Such 
a  man  is  but  "  little  lower  than  the  angels," 


208  The  Mate  and  the  Home. 

and  I   have    seen   liim.     He   is   comely  to  be- 
hold. 

And  I  have  seen  homes  where  the  wife 
does  all  the  giving.  It  is  her  daily  and  hourly 
study  to  so  order  her  household  and  her  sur- 
roundings as  that  the  delicate  sensibilities  of 
her  lord  and  master  may  never  be  jarred.  In- 
stead of  carrying  his  half  of  the  burdens  of  life, 
he  puts  both  halves  upon  her  shoulders,  and 
she  meekly  trudges  on,  bending  a  little  and  a 
little  more  lowly  as  the  years  go  on,  and  soon 
she  will  fall  by  the  wayside,  and  he  will  never 
know  why,  for  his  thoughts  are  fixed  wholly 
upon  himself.  He  is  the  kind  of  man  whom 
George  MacDonald  describes  as  ^'  so  sensitive 
that  he  shuts  his  ears  to  his  sister's  griefs, 
because  it  spoils  his  digestion  to  think  of 
them."  Yet  he  is  a  very  proper  man  in  the 
eyes  of  society,  and  very  "  respectable  "  in  the 
way  alluded  to  by  the  same  wTiter  when  he 
puts  these  words  into  the  mouth  of  Hobert  Fal- 
coner :  "  But  one  thing  is  clear  to  me,  that  no 
indulgence  of  passion  destro^^a  the  spiritual 
nature  so  much  as  respectable  selfishness." 
The  man  who  is  selfish  in  his  own  home,  and 
with  his  own  wife  and  children,  was,  beyond 


The  Mate  and  the  Home.  209 

all  question,  equally  selfish  with  liis  mother 
and  sisters  before  he  had  a  wife ;  and  so  I  say 
to  you  again,  dear  girls,  observe  how  your 
young  men  treat  their  mothers  and  sisters,  and 
guide  yourselves  accordingly. 

"  But  you  are  terribly  practical !"  is  the 
reflection  which  doubtless  fills  your  minds 
while  I  hold  your  attention  down  to  the  de- 
tails of  e very-day  life,  instead  of  painting  for 
you  fair  pictures  of  ideal  homes  in  cloud-land. 
Dear  hearts,  you  can  build  all  the  air  castles 
without  any  of  my  help.  You  are  at  just  the 
age  when  that  kind  of  architecture  prevails. 
And  the  more  imaginative  your  temperament, 
the  more  of  such  castles  you  will  build.  You 
will  have  no  difiicultj  in  investing  the  hand- 
some young  man  who  paid  you  such  flattering 
homage  last  evening,  and  who  heaped  his  floral 
offering  with  still  more  attractive  flowers  of 
sentiment,  with  a  halo  which  shall  preclude  all 
such  questions  as.  Is  he  temperate  ?  Is  he  un- 
selfish ?  Is  he  clean,  morally  and  physically 
and  mentally  ? 

That  was  the  case  with  the  unhappy  pair 
whose  story  I  have  told  you.  Their  vivid  im- 
aginations  idealized   each    other   to    the    utter 


210  The  Mate  and  the  Home. 

extinction  of  all  common-sense.  He  was  tall 
and  handsome,  and  of  honeyed  sweetness  of 
manner,  and  he  took  her  out  sailing  by  moon- 
light (the  night  air  had  no  poison  in  it  then !), 
and  told  her  that  the  light  of  the  moon  and 
of  the  stars  was  dim  compared  with  the  light 
in  her  eyes,  and  that  the  blush  of  the  roses 
he  brought  her  was  put  to  shame  by  the  bloom 
of  her  round  cheeks. 

Of  course  she  forgot  to  find  out  whether  he 
washed  himself  once  a  year,  or  once  in  a  life- 
time, or  never.  She  could  never  be  flo  fear- 
fully practical  and  unpoetical  as  that.  But 
the  orange-blossoms  had  not  yet  faded  when 
she  made  discoveries  even  worse  than  I  can 
tell  you  here,  and  which  proved  the  assumption 
that  unclean  souls  are  most  at  home  in  unclean 
bodies.  And  he  found  out  that  the  "eyes 
which  put  the  stars  to  shame "  could  flash 
lightning  at  him  in  most  terrific  fashion. 
Alas !  poor  souls !  If  they  only  had  listened 
to  the  practical  promptings  of  common-sense, 
what  a  world  of  misery  they  would  have  es- 
caped ! 

But  I  must  not  dwell  longer  upon  the 
choice   of  a   mate,   and   will   assume   that  you 


The  Mate  and  the  Home.  211 

have  chosen  deliberately,  wisely,  and  well. 
He  is  healthy.  That  is,  he  inherits,  so  far  as 
you  can  learn  from  his  family  physician  (for 
that  is  the  one  who  should  decide  upon  the 
•fitness  of  parties  for  marriage),  no  scrofula,  no 
consumption,  and  no  insanity.  He  is  temper- 
ate.  That  is,  he  neither  eats  nor  drinks  that 
which  can  do  him  harm,  nor  has  he,  by  excesses 
of  any  kind,  so  weakened  his  digestion  that  he 
is  obliged  to  smoke  a  cigar  in  order  to  digest 
his  dinner.  He  is  clean ^  physically  and  mor- 
ally. He  is  industrious^  else  he  must  be 
vicious. 

You  are  now,  from  this  time  onward,  by 
all  the  love  and  honor  which  you  entertain  for 
each  other,  bound  to  order  your  lives  in  high- 
est and  holiest  conformity  with  the  one  ulti- 
mate end  and  aim  of  marriage,  namely,  the 
establishment  of  "a  new  household,"  and  the 
rearing  of  immortal  souls.  Do  not,  I  beg  you, 
rush  into  that  fashionable,  but  fatal,  error  oi 
getting  married  before  your  own  nest  is  built 
and  taking  up  your  abode  in  another's  nest, 
like  the  cuckoo,  the  thief  among  birds.  The 
practice  of  marrying  and  boarding  leads  to 
more  vice  and  crime  than  is  known  to  any  but 


212  The  Mate  and  the  Home. 

physicians.  I,  with  only  a  limited  experience 
as  medical  practitioner,  can  count  a  score  of 
brides  who  have  come  to  me  to  beg  me  to 
murder  their  unborn  children,  because  they 
were  "  boarding,"  and  it  was  not  "  convenient 
to  have  a  family  "  !  Most  horrible  of  horrors ! 
Most  foolish  of  follies  !  Yet  any  physician  can 
tell  you  the  same  terrible  fact. 

That  ''  idleness  is  the  parent  of  vice "  i3 
another  fact  which  finds  sad  confirmation  in 
the  life  of  many  a  young  woman  who  begins 
her  married  life  in  a  boarding-house.  She 
has  nothing  to  do,  as  a  rule,  but  to  fix  up  in 
her  new  clothes  and  look  pretty.  After  a 
time  she  fails  to  find  satisfaction  in  being  ad- 
mired by  one  man ;  and  as  there  are  generally 
a  half  dozen  idle  men  for  every  industrious 
one,  it  happens  too  often,  sad  as  it  is  to  relate, 
that  she  comes  to  court  and  receive  the  admi- 
ration of  the  six  idle  ones  while  her  husband 
is  cno-ao-ed  in  honest  labor. 

Therefore,  I  say  again,  and  always  again, 
dear  girls,  do  not  be  in  haste  to  marry,  for  any 
reason  whatever.  The  French  proverb  is  no 
less  susceptible  of  application  here  than  else- 
where :    "  He    who    tires  not,    tires    adversity. 


The  Mate  and  the  Home.  213 

All  comes  right  to  him  who  can  afford  to 
wait." 

And  while  you  wait,  do  not  shut  yourself 
away  from  air  and  light  and  all  the  joy  which 
they  insure,  by  mousing  yourself  np  with  a 
sewing-machine  and  making  a  pile  of  elabo- 
rately-decorated underclothing  which  will  prob- 
ably be  of  very  little  use  to  you  after  it  is  done. 
I  have  in  mind  a  bride  who,  like  many  another, 
did  that  very  thing ;  and  when  she  put  on  the 
bridal  veil,  neither  it  nor  the  powder  on  the 
face  could  conceal  the  pale  yellow  tint  of  the 
face  which  was  a  stranger  to  air  and  sunlight. 
The  elegant  white  silk  was  fitted  to  the  last 
degree  of  smoothness  over  a  waist  which  could 
be  clasped  w4th  two  hands,  and  the  poor  thing 
looked  more  like  the  bride  of  death  than  like 
a  woman  going  to  assume  the  sacred  duties  of 
a  wife  and  mother. 

In  due  time  a  poor,  little,  weak,  white-faced 
boy  came  to  her,  who  has  never  known  what 
it  is  to  be  ruddy  and  strong  and  buoyant  with 
fresh  young  life,  and  I  fear  he  never  will  know. 
The  poor,  yellow-faced  mother  grows  yellower 
every  day,  along  with  the  useless  underclothing 
which  lies  in  the  chests,  and  in  whose  fabrica- 


214:  The  Mate  and  the  Home. 

tion  she  wasted  the  vitality  which  she  ought 
to  have  secured  for  herself  and  her  boy  by 
going  out  daily  in  pursuit  of  it.  Indeed,  it  is 
marvelous  how  it  ever  came  to  pass  that  a 
young  woman  on  the  eve  of  marriage  should 
be  expected  to  devote  herself  to  amassing  such 
supplies  of  underclothing  as  custom  has  made 
almost  imperative ;  for  nine  out  of  ten  who 
follow  the  custom  will  tell  you  it  is  mere  folly, 
that  the  fashion  of  these  things  changes  as  does 
that  of  all  outward  things,  and  that  they  get 
tired  of  the  old  long  before  they  can  put  it 
aside  for  the  new. 

Alas !  how  true  it  is,  all  through  the  life 
of  woman,  that  it  is  her  clothing  which,  more 
than  any  single  cause,  contributes  to  her  phys- 
ical, as  to  her  moral,  undoing  !  She  who  main- 
tains her  chastity  none  the  less  loses  her  health 
by  her  devotion  to  that  capricious  something 
which  we  call  "fashion,"  and  she  who  has  bar- 
tered her  chastity  has,  in  most  cases,  been  mis- 
led by  the  promise  of  ribbons  and  fine  clothes. 

The  sewing-machine,  which  ought  to  be  a 
blessing  to  woman,  has  been  so  sadly  perverted, 
by  the  excesses  in  the  way  of  ornamentation  to 
which  it  has  given  rise,  that   it  has  proved  a 


The  Mate  and  the  Home.  215 

curse,  in  that  it  has  led  to  many  forms  of 
uterine  and  ovarian  disease,  and,  in  not  a  few- 
instances,  to  the  death  of  unborn  children, 
whose  mothers  have  ignorantlj  spent  hour 
after  hour  at  it  in  the  fabrication  of  more  than 
uselessly  betucked  and  beruffled  infant  ward- 
robes. 

It  seems  to  me  we  but  dimly  comprehend, 
after  all  these  centuries,  what  wealth  of  mean- 
ing i\Ioses,  the  learned  physician,  had  in  mind 
when  he  told  us  that  the  making  of  clothing 
was  the  first  result  of  that  first  yielding  to 
temptation  which  led  to  the  knowledge  of 
good  and  evil.  Shall  we  ever  learn  ?  Shall 
we  ever  regain  the  lost  Eden  ?  If  we  ever  do, 
we  shall  surely  approach  it  by  the  way  of  the 
perfect  Home. 

And  where  shall  we  find  this  home  ?  This 
will  be  the  first  question  for  you  and  your 
chosen  mate  to  answer,  when  you  have  each 
decided  that  you  have  chosen  "  the  best." 
First,  where,  and  second,  what,  shall  the  home 
be? 

For  location,  I  beg  you  avoid  the  heart  of 
a  great  city.  That  is  for  business  and  for  hotels 
and  boarding-houses,  not   for  homes.     Choose, 


216  The  Mate  and  the  Home. 

rather,  the  companionship  of  green  fields  and 
vocal  woodlands  where  modern  transit  conven- 
iences insure  ready  access  to  all  the  advantages 
of  the  city,  while,  at  the  same  time,  you  avoid 
its  din,  its  dust,  and  its  distractions.  A  homely 
counsel  tells  us  that  it  is  safe  to  build  a  home 
where  a  woodchuck  digs  his  hole,  for  there 
you  are  sure  of  good  drainage.  Do  not  be 
afraid  of  climbing  a  hill.  I  suppose  the  fore- 
fathers were  so  imb|ied  with  the  idea  of  get- 
ting shelter  from  persecution  in  all  forms, 
whether  ecclesiastical,  aboriginal,  or  climatic, 
that  they  nestled  together  under  the  hills  of 
New  England,  rather  than  on  them,  so  that 
one  is  struck  with  their  apparent  disregard  of 
the  sanitary  instincts  of  the  woodchuck  in 
noting  how  they  established  alike  their  farm- 
houses and  their  towns  in  valleys  and  beneath 
hills,  where  the  sanitarian  of  to-day  finds  most 
favoring  conditions  for  typhoid  or  malarial  fe- 
vers, in  defective  drainage  or  in  exhalations 
from  low  lands.  It  is  curious  to  note,  too, 
how  the  instinct  for  shelter  extended  even  to 
the  churches,  and  led  to  the  building  of  close 
boxes  for  pews,  with  closely-buttoning  doors  to 
them ;  and  even  the  minister  was  buttoned  into 


The  Mate  and  the  Home.  217 

his  pulpit,  as  if  to  keep  him  safe  from  the 
Indians. 

But  quite  other  foes  than  red  men  are 
*^  the  foes  of  one's  own  household " ;  yet  no 
less  to  be  dreaded  and  shunned  are  these, 
when  they  take  the  form  of  bad  air,  insuffi- 
cient sunlight,  and  defective  drainage.  Lift  up 
your  eyes,  then,  unto  the  hills,  w^hence  cometh 
your  strength,  when  you  look  for  the  place 
where  your  model  home  shall  be.  Then  plant 
no  evergreens  nor  any  other  trees  about  your 
house  where  they  can  cut  off  your  air  and 
your  sunlight,  unless  you  want  evergreens  for 
a  wall  of  protection  from  the  north  winds. 
The  true  sanitary  home  will  have  no  living- 
rooms  nor  sleeping-rooms  on  its  north  side, 
but  will  reserve  that  for  storerooms  and  for 
the  refrigerator,  and  that  is  the  only  side 
where  the  evergreens  are  tolerable. 

Then  plan  your  house  so  that  every  room 
you  occupy  shall  be  a  sunny  one.  You  want 
a  sunny  dining-room,  a  sunny  sitting-room,  and 
sunny  sleeping-rooms,  and  not  one  of  these 
rooms  should  have  a  carpet  or  any  furniture 
which  is  too  good  for  the  sun  to  shine  upon. 
If  you  must  have  one  of  those  chilling  abomi- 


218  The  Mate  and  the  Home. 

nations  known  as  a  "parlor,"  with  its  darkness 
and  mustiness  and  grandeur  of  upholstery, 
where  formal  calls  are  made,  and  wdiere  each 
party  breathes  a  sigh  of  relief  when  the  for- 
midable task  is  accomplished — if  you  must  have 
such  a  place  of  torture,  it  may  as  well  be  on 
the  north  side,  with  the  refrigerator;  but  I  beg 
you  not  to  put  me  in  it  when  I  come  to  see 
you. 

Your  next  care,  after  the  insuring  of  free 
access  of  air  and  sunshine  to  all  tlie  inhabited 
parts  of  the  house,  will  be  directed  to  tlie 
securing  of  an  abundant  supply  of  pure  water. 
The  location  of  dwellins-s  in  low  lands  because 

o 

it  is  easy  to  get  water  there  is  an  apt  confirma- 
tion of  the  saying  that  "  lazy  people  take  the 
most  pains " ;  for  the  lowjand  dw^ellers  are  the 
besc  patrons  of  the  doctor  and  the  pill-man; 
and  if  they  would  work  a  little  harder  to  get 
water  on  a  height,  they  would  be  spared  much 
of  the  labor  expended  in  getting  money  with 
which  to  buy  the  "  bitters  *'  and  pills  which  a 
residence  in  the  low  lands  implies.  If  you  are 
to  depend  upon  well-water,  you  must  bear  in 
mind  the  following  facts,  which  I  quote  from 


The  Mate  and  the  Home.  219 

"A  Manual  of  Practical  Hygiene,"  by  Dr. 
Parker,  of  England : 

"  A  well  drains  an  extent  of  ground  around 
it,  in  the  shape  of  an  inverted  cone,  which  is 
in  proportion  to  its  own  depth  and  the  loose- 
ness of  the  soil.  In  very  loose  soils  a  well  of 
sixty  or  eighty  feet  will  drain  a  large  area, 
perhaps  as  much  as  two  hundred  feet  in  diam- 
eter, or  even  more ;  but  the  exact  amount  is 
not,  as  far  as  I  know,  precisely  determined. 

"  Certain  trades  pour  their  refuse  water 
into  rivers:  gas-works;  slaughter-houses;  tripe- 
houses;  size,  horn,  and  isinglass  manufactories; 
wash-houses,  starch-works,  and  calico-printers; 
and  many  others.  In  houses,  it  is  astonishing 
how  many  instances  occur  of  the  water  of  butts, 
cisterns  and  tanks  getting  contaminated  by 
leaking  of  pipes  and  otlier  causes,  such  as  the 
passage  of  sewer-gas  through  overflow  pipes, 
etc. 

"As  there  is  now  no  doubt  that  typhoid 
fever,  cholera  and  dysentery  may  be  caused  by 
water  rendered  impure  by  the  evacuations 
passed  in  those  diseases ;  and  as  simple  diar- 
rhoea seeujs  also  to  be  largely  caused  by  animal 
organic   suspension   or   solution,   it    is    evident 


220  The  Mate   and  the  Home, 

how  necessary  it  is  to  be  quick-sighted  in  re- 
gard to  the  possible  impurity  of  water  from 
incidental  causes  of  this  kind.  Therefore,  all 
tanks  and  cisterns  should  be  inspected  regu- 
larly, and  any  accidental  source  of  impurity 
must  be  looked  out  for.  Wells  should  be  cov- 
ered ;  a  good  coping  put  round  to  prevent 
substances  being  washed  down ;  the  distance 
from  cesspits  and  dung-heaps  should  be  care- 
fully noted ;  no  sewer  should  be  allowed  to 
pass  near  a  well.  The  same  precautions  should 
be  taken  with  springs.  In  the  case  of  rivers, 
we  must  consider  if  contamination  can  result 
from  the  discharge  of  faecal  matters,  trade  ref- 
use, etc.'' 

I  quote  next  from  "  The  Sanitarian "  an 
illustration  of  the  results  of  a  disregard  of  these 
precautions  : 

"A  correspondent  of  the  Massachusetts  State 
Board  of  Health  gives  a  sketch  of  the  cellar  of 
a  house  in  Hadlej^,  built  by  a  clergyman.  It 
was  provided  with  an  open  well  and  sink-drain, 
with  its  deposit-box  in  close  proximity  thereto, 
affording  facility  to  discharge  its  gases  in  the 
well  as  the  most  convenient  place.  The  cellar 
was  used,  as  country  cellars  commonly  are,  for 


The  Mate  and  the  Home.  221 

the  storage  of  provisions  of  every  kind,  and 
the  windows  were  never  opened.  The  only  es- 
cape for  the  soil  moisture  and  ground  air,  except 
that  which  was  absorbed  by  the  drinking-water, 
was  through  the  crevices  of  the  floor  into  the 
rooms  above.  After  a  few  months'  residence  in 
the  house,  the  clergyman's  wife  died  of  fever. 
He  soon  married  again,  and  the  second  wife 
also  died  of  fever,  within  a  year  from  the  time 
of  marriage.  His  children  were  sick.  He  oc- 
cupied the  house  about  two  years.  The  wife  of 
his  successor  was  soon  taken  ill,  and  barely 
escaped  with  her  life.  A  physician  then  took 
the  house !  He  married,  and  his  wife  soon 
after  died  of  fever.  Another  physician  took  the 
house,  and  within  a  few  monthc  came  near 
dying  of  erysipelas.  He  deserved  it.  The 
house,  meanwhile,  received  no  treatment;  the 
doctors,  according  to  their  usual  wont,  even  in 
their  own  families,  were  satisfied  to  deal  with 
the  consequences,  and  leave  the  causes  to  do 
their  worst. 

"Next  after  the  doctors,  a  school-teacher  took 
the  house,  and  made  a  few  changes,  *for  con- 
venience,' apparently,  for  substantially  it  re- 
mained  the  same — for  he,  too,   escaped  as  by 


222  The  Mate  and  the  Home. 

tlie  skin  of  his  teeth.  Finally,  after  the  fore- 
closure of  many  lives,  the  sickness  and  fatality 
of  the  property  became  so  marked  that  it  bo- 
came  unsalable.  When  last  sold,  every  sort  of 
prediction  was  made  as  to  the  risk  of  occu- 
pancy ;  but,  by  a  thorough  attention  to  sanitary 
conditions,  no  such  risks  have  been  encountered." 
It  is  quite  probable  that  the  usual  com- 
ments upon  "  the  mysterious  dealings  of  Provi- 
dence "  were  made  at  tlie  several  funeral  cere- 
monies which  followed  upon  the  several  suicides 
above  recorded,  so  habitual  is  it  to  attribute  the 
consequences  of  such  lamentable  ignorance  and 
stupidity  to  the  God  whc> 

"moves  in  a  mysterious  way 
His  -wonders  to  perform," 

when,  if  we  would  only  look  beyond  conse- 
quences into  causes,  we  should  see  that  it  is 
just  as  much  a  part  of  God's  beautiful  system 
of  cause  and  effect  that  typhoid  fever  should 
ensue  upon  bad  drainage  as  that  a  crop  of  wheat 
should  reward  the  sower. 

I  recently  heard  a  little  boy  commenting 
upon  the  death  of  one  of  his  playmates,  and 
this  is  the  conclusion  he  arrived  at  concerning 
the  cause  of  what  the   clergyman   is  wont   to 


The  Mate  and  the  Home.  223 

call  a  "mysterious  dispensation  of  Providence " : 

"  Mamma,"  said  he,  "  I  think  I  know  why 

died.  His  mamma  didn't  know  how  to  take 
care  of  him,  and  so  God  thought  he  had  better 
take  him  home  and  take  care  of  him  himself." 

It  is  difficult  to  see  how  any  commentator 
could  improve  upon  that  conclusion.  Alas ! 
how  few  mothers  do  know  how  to  take  care  of 
their  children,  and  how  few  are  capable  of  ex- 
ercising that  intelligent  forethought  which  is 
necessary  for  the  establishment  of  a  successful 
"  new  household  "! 

We  hear  much  about  "  the  higher  educa- 
tion of  women "  as  a  means  of  admission  into 
the  several  professions  which  have  hitherto  been 
regarded  as  accessible  only  by  men,  and  society 
is,  fur  the  most  part,  coolly  awaiting,  with 
folded  hands,  the  result  of  their  efforts  at  com- 
petition in  these  professions.  The  several  stages 
of  opposition  and  ridicule  have  been  surmounted. 
Women  have  been  through  the  same  college 
curriculum  with  men ;  have  taken  diplomas  from 
schools  of  law,  divinity,  and  medicine  ;  and  are 
now  on  trial  before  a  jury  which  differs  vastly 
from  the  ordinary  array  of  "  twelve  idiots,"  in 
that  it  represents,  largely,  the  best  thought  of 


224  The  Mate  and  the  Home. 

the  day.  It  is  plain  to  all  that,  if  a  womciii 
essays  to  perform  auy  work  which  is  not,  from 
its  very  natm-e,  purely  woman's  work,  she 
must,  for  the  time  being,  ignore  all  consider- 
ations except  those  pertaining  to  the  best 
achievement :  hence  she  must  accept  judgment 
upon  the  work  itself,  the  worker  being  prac- 
tically ignored. 

For  ns,  the  question  is  purely  and  exclu- 
sively womanly ;  and  for  me,  coming  to  you  aa 
a  teacher  of  what  you  "  ought  to  know,"  the 
way  is  as  straight  and  as  plain  as  God  can 
^  make  it. 

There  are  some  things  which  God  has  told 
women  they  are  to  do,  and  which  none  but  they 
can  do,  and  the  teaching  of  those  things  be- 
longs especially  to  the  department  of  Physiol- 
ogy. It  is  for  me,  then,  to  endeavor  to  point 
out  to  you  the  way  by  which  you  may  come 
most  nearly  to  Wordsworth's  standard  of 

"A  perfect  woman,  nobly  planned, 
To  warn,  to  comfort,  to  command, 
And  yet  a  spirit  still,  and  bright 
With  something  of  an  angel's  light." 


CHAPTER  XIII. 

THE  PERFECT  WOMAN. 

**Be   ye    therefore    perfect,   even    as    your    Father 
•which  is  in  heaven  is  perfect."  —  Matthew  v,   48. 

"Kead  the  passage  in  its  connection,  and 
you  will  comprehend  ita  meaning.  Jesus  has 
just  been  describing  the  Father  in  heaven  as 
causing  his  sun  to  shine  upon  the  just  and 
upon  the  unjust;  that  is  to  say,  in  the  concep- 
tion of  Jesus,  God  is  perfect  in  proportion  as 
he  comes  down,  and  not  in  proportion  as  he 
remains  above;  in  proportion  as  he  shows  his 
favor  to  the  worst,  not  in  proportion  as  he 
exalts  himself  above  the  best.... The  perfec- 
tion of  God  consists  in  his  communicating  life 
to  the  smallest  things,  in  his  doing  the  most 
ungracious  tasks  for  ungracious  people,  in  his 


226  The  Perfect  Woman. 

drudging    at    enterprises    that   men   think    too 
unclean  for  their  dainty  fingers.  .  .  . 

"  The  perfect  life  of  Jesus — how  was  that 
expressed  ?...  .Great  he  was  not,  according 
to  ordinary  human  standards.  Socially  he  was 
not  great.  He  was  despised  as  the  friend  of 
the  publicans  and  sinners;  he  was  classed 
by  the  saintly  people  of  his  day  among  the 
* come-outers '  and  infidels;  because  he  talked 
in  human  fashion  with  a  bad  woman  in  the 
street  he  was  considered  no  better  than  she. .  . . 
Where,  then,  w^as  his  perfection  ?  Simply  in 
the  fact  that  he  could  talk  with  the  woman 
and  not  despise  her;  that  he  could  go  among 
the  lowest,  as  one  of  them,  without  any  word 
of  scorn  ever  dropping  from  his  lips  ;  that  ho 
was  not  cold  to  any  form  of  human  suffering 
or  misery.... A  great  phrase  in  our  time  is 
*  self-development,'  as  describing  the  aim  of 
perfection  for  modern  men.  But  the  merit  of 
Belf-development  depends  wholly  upon  the  qual- 
ity of  the  self-hood  that  »is  developed.  The 
development  of  a  very  cheap,  taw^dry  style  of 
self-hood  is  not  noble.  ..  .Self-hood  does  not 
consist  in  development  above  or  beyond  hu- 
manity, but  in   sympathy   with   it.     Take   our 


The  Perfect  Woman.  227 

own  Emerson — that  beautiful  shaft  of  polished 
marble.  How  exquisite  his  mind  !  how  finished 
his  taste !  how  delicate  his  spiritual  percep- 
tions !  how  serene  and  self-absorbed  his  air  as 
he  goes  along  the  streets !  Yet  Emerson  is 
one  of  the  most  entirely  human  persons  in  the 
country  :  a  patriot ;  a  neighbor ;  a  friend  to  the 
homely;  a  man  who  puts  his  name  to  good 
causes  without  questioning  their  popularity, 
and  gives  his  strength  to  any  work  that  is 
work  for  humanity;  a  man  who  has  no  shame 
to  be  seen  walking  side  by  side  with  the  illit- 
erate or  the  outcast  if  they  are  seeking  the 
welfare  of  the  common  humanity  which  includes 
them  both. 

"  We  are  fascinated  by  the  fountain  of 
water,  admiring  the  crystal  jet  as  it  pushes  up 
toward  the  skies,  flashing  in  the  sunlight;  but 
it  is  the  turning-point  that  makes  the  culmina- 
tion of  the  beauty.  It  is  when  the  column 
bends  over,  begins  to  fall,  and,  falling,  dis- 
perses itself  in  drOps  of  dew,  clothing  every 
blade  of  grass  with  diamonds,  that  the  fount- 
ain becomes  really  beautiful."  —  Rev.  O.  B. 
Frothingham  ("The  Perfect  Life"). 

Along  with  the  much  talking  of  "  the  higher 


228  The  Perfect  Woman, 

education  of  women  "  there  goes  much  concern- 
ing "  the  perfect  home."  The  world  is  waiting 
to  refresh  itself  in  that  "  perfect  home,"  and  it 
will  continue  to  wait  until  "the  perfect  wo- 
man" comes,  for  she  alone  can  create  it.  We 
have  already  an  ahundance  of  "pattern  house- 
keepers," who  fight  dirt  and  flies  and  sunlight 
out  of  their  houses  with  a  persistency  worthy 
of  their  Puritan  descent.  They  tread  round 
and  round  in  their  little  peck  measures  of  daily 
duty.  They  make  very  nice  bread.  They  fry 
very  nice  doughnuts  (?).  They  make  very  nice 
pies  and  pickles  and  sweetmeats  (?).  Their 
children  are  patterns  of  neatness  and  propriety ; 
they  never  have  soiled  stockings  nor  soiled  pin- 
afores ;  they  never  make  mud-pies,  nor  pick  up 
dirty  stones,  nor  handle  "  horrid  bugs  and 
worms,"  nor  "  litter  up "  the  house  with 
"  weeds "  from  the  woods. 

Then,  too.  we  have  an  abundance  of  the 
"Top-Lofty'  style  of  women.  They  can  write 
big  books,  full  of  big  words,  which  one  must 
study  with  dictionary  in  hand,  as  if  they  were 
written  in  a  foreign  tongue. 

They  can  talk  in  profoundest  Btylc  about 
"  peripheral  influences  of  an  extremely  power- 


The  Perfect  Woman.  229 

ful  and  contiDuous  kind,  which  can  set  going  a 
non-inflammatorj  centric  atrophy,  which  may 
localize  itself  in  those  nerves  upon  whose  cen- 
ters the  morbific  peripheral  influence  is  perpet- 
ually pouring  in." 

Some  of  them  can  "  scold  upon  the  plat- 
form "  until  "  the  planets  shudder,  shrink,  and 
grow  more  rusty " ;  but  among  them  all  we 
yet  look  in  vain  for  the  answer  to  Solomon's 
question  : 

"Who  can  find  a  virtuous  woman?  for  her  price  is 
far  above  rubies. 

"The  heart   of  her  husband    doth    safety   trust    in 
her,  so  that  he  shall  have  no  need  of  spoil. 

"  She  will  do  him  good,  and  not  evil,  all  the  days 
of  her  life. 

"She  seeketh  wool  and  flax,  and  worketh  willingly 
with  her  hands. 

"She  is  like  the  merchants'  ships:  she  bringeth  her 
food  from  afar. 

"She  risetli  also  while  it  is  yet  night,  and  giveth 
meat  to  her  household,  and  a  portion  to  her  maidens. 

"She   considereth   a  field  and   buyetli  it;  with  the 
fruit  of  her  hand    she  planteth  a  vineyard. 

"She  girdeth  her  loins  with  strength,  and  strengtli- 
eneth  her  arms, 

"She  perceiveth  that  her  merchandise  is  good:  her 
candle  goeth  not  out  by  night. 

"She    layeth    her  hands    to   the    spindle,   and    her 
hands  hold  the  distaff. 


230  The  Perfect  Woman. 

"  She  stretcheth  out  lier  hands  to  the  poor;  yea, 
she  reacheth  forth  her  hands  to  the  needy. 

"She  is  not  afraid  of  the  snow  for  her  household; 
for  all  her  household  are  clothed  with  scarlet. 

''She  maketh  herself  coverings  of  tapestry;  her 
clothing  is  silk  and  purple. 

"Her  husband  is  known  in  the  gates  when  he  sit- 
teth  among  the  elders  of  the  land. 

"She  maketh  fine  linen,  and  selleth  it,  and  deliv- 
ereth  girdles  unto  the  merchant. 

"  Strength  and  honor  are  her  clothing;  and  she 
shall  rejoice  in  time  to  come. 

"She  openeth  her  mouth  with  wisdom;  and  in  her 
tongue  is  the  law  of  kindness. 

"She  looketh  well  to  the  ways  of  her  household, 
and  eateth  not  the  bread  of  idleness. 

"Her  children  arise  up  and  call  her  blessed;  her 
husband  also,  and  he  praiseth  her. 

"Many  daughters  have  done  virtuously,  but  thou 
excellest  them  all. 

"Favor  is  deceitful,  and  beauty  is  vain:  but  a 
woman  that  feareth  the  Lord,  she  shall  be  praised. 

"Give  her  of  the  fruit  of  her  hands;  and  let  her 
own  works  praise  her  in  the  gates." — Proverbs  xxxi. 

During  all  the  centuries  which  have  "dropped 
like  grains  of  sand  "  from  the  hand  of  the  Infi- 
nite since  those  words  were  first  uttered,  woman 
has  been  getting  a  little  and  a  little  nearer  to 
tliis  ideal  type.  She  is  making  great  strides, 
during  this  nineteenth  century,  toward  the  in- 


The  Perfect  Woman,  231 

tellectual  requirements  here  set  forth ;  but  it  is 
lionestly  questioned,  by  physiologists,  whether 
she  is  paying  that  regard  to  that  girding  of 
*'her  loins  with  strength''  without  which  all 
other  acquisitions  will  avail  but  little. 

The  late  Dr.  Edward  Clarke,  when  he  gave 
her  the  fruits  of  his  ripe  experience  and  observ- 
ation in  his  book  called  "  Sex  in  Education,  or 
a  Fair  Chance  for  the  Girls,"  did  more  to  recall 
her  to  a  just  and  rational  appreciation  of  her 
physiological  position  in  Creation  than  has  been 
done  by  any  modern  writer;  and,  so  far  as  I 
know,  the  educated  women  physicians  of  to-day 
have,  in  the  main,  advocated  his  views  therein 
expressed,  in  their  efforts  to  induce  women  to 
respect  the  peculiar  mechanism  of  their  bodies, 
and  to  cease  their  attempts  to  stifle  and  ignore 
it.  He  says :  "  In  all  their  work  they  must 
respect  their  own  organization,  and  remain  wo- 
men ...  If  we  would  give  our  girls  a  fair  chance, 
and  see  them  become  and  do  their  best,  by 
reaching  after  and  attaining  an  ideal  beauty 
and  power  whicli  shall  be  a  crown  of  glory  and 
a  tower  of  strength  to  the  republic,  we  must 
look  after  their  complete  development  as  wo- 
men ....  Physiology  confirms   the  hope  of  the 


232  The,  Perfect  Woman, 

race  by  asserting  that  the  loftiest  heights  of  in- 
tellectual and  spiritual  vision  and  force  are  free 
to  each  sex,  and  accessible  by  each;  but  adds 
that  each  must  climb  in  its  own  way,  and  ac- 
cept its  own  limitations,  and,  when  this  is  done, 
promises  that  each  will  find  the  doing  of  it 
not  to  weaken  or  diminish,  but  to  develop 
power." 

Returning,  now,  to  the  consideration  of  Sol- 
omon's ideal  woman,  we  find  that  the  first 
essential  is  that  she  be  "  virtuous,"  and  to  be 
virtuous,  in  the  purest  sense  of  the  word,  is  to 
be  strong,  *' Virtue,  Latin,  virtus:  strength, 
courage,  excellence." — Webster.  It  is  sad  to 
acknowledge,  as  we  are  compelled  to  do,  that 
the  *^  virtuous"  woman,  in  this  literal  sense,  is 
the  exception  rather  than  the  rule. 

"She  considereth  a  field,  and  buyeth  it; 
with  the  fruit  of  her  hands  she  planteth  a  vine- 
yard." 

This  implies  a  practical  knowledge  of  soils, 
and  of  agriculture ;  of  geometry,  of  mineralogy, 
and  of  botany ;  of  the  comparative  value,  as 
well  as  the  measurement,  of  land. 

If  the  wives  of  those  ministers  and  doctors 
and  of  the  schoolmaster  who  fell  victims  to  the 


The  Perfect  Woman.  233 

bad  air  of  that  Hadlej  house,  of  which  we 
heard  in  the  previous  chapter,  had  been  prop- 
erly educated  to  do  their  share  in  the  selection 
of  a  site  for  a  house  it  is  probable  tliat  their 
lives  would  all  have  been  saved.  You  will 
notice  that  it  was  the  women  and  children  who 
died.  You  know  it  is  the  women  and  children 
who  spend  the  most  time  in  the  house.  The 
men  have  their  outside  lives,  largely  apart  from 
the  home  and  its  belongings,  and  its  sanitary 
conditions  have,  naturally,  far  less  intimate  re- 
lations to  their  health  than  they  have  to  the 
physical  well-being  of  the  wife  and  children. 
Therefore,  the  "  perfect  woman "  will  know 
enough  about  soils  and  drainage  and  ventilation 
and  water-sources  and  architecture  to  aid  her 
mate  intelligently  in  the  establishment  of  their 
"new  household." 

1  do  not  suppose  that  the  second  Mrs.  Rev. 

,  of  Hadley,  ever  thought  of  asking  why 

the  first  Mrs.  Kev.  — —  died.     Doubtless  the 

Bev.  Mr. gave  her  a  proper  funeral  and  a 

proper  headstone,  wore  the  crape  of  the  proper 
width  and  for  the  proper  length  of  time,  while, 
at  the  same  time  with  the  wearing  of  the  crape, 
the  selection  of  the  second  Mrs.  Rev. pro- 


234  The  Perfect  Woman. 

ceeded  in  proper  manner.  The  selection  being 
duly   made,  I  suppose   the   second   Mrs.    Hev. 

,  in  spe^  at  once  sat  down  and  made  a  pile 

of  new  chemises.  Probably  she  never  looked 
at  the  cellar  or  the  location  of  the  well  and 
waste-pipes  of  the  house  where  she  was  to  pre- 
side. So  she  went  there  and  died,  in  her  sim- 
ple Ignorance,  as  the  doctor's  wife  and  the 
schoolmaster's  wife  did,  in  theirs.  *'  Provi- 
dence "  was  credited  with  taking  them  "  myste- 
riously." A  little  more  light  and  air  in  the 
cellar  cleared  up  the  *'  mystery." 

The  "  perfect  woman "  "  girdeth  her  loins 
with  strength,  and  strengtheneth  her  arms." 

The  ordinary  woman  "girdeth  her  loins" 
with  corsets,  and  weakeneth  her  arms  by  fold- 
ing them  in  a  muff. 

"'  She  perceiveth  that  her  merchandise  ia 
good :  her  candle  goeth  not  out  by  night." 

This  may  quite  properly  imply  that  she  is 
so  well  educated  in  the  varieties  of  merchandise 
that  she  cannot  be  swindled. 

"  She  stretcheth  out  her  hand  to  the  poor ; 
yea,  she  reacheth  forth  her  hands  to  the  needy." 

The  idle  tramp  cannot  impose  upon  her 
credulity.     She  has  the  discretion  requisite  for 


The  Perfect  Woman.  235 

discriminating  between  the  deserving  and  the 
undeserving. 

"  She  is  not  afraid  of  the  snow  for  her 
household ;  for  all  her  household  are  clothed 
with  scarlet." 

It  would  almost  seem  that  Solomon's  pro- 
phetic soul  projected  itself  over  the  centuries 
into  the  dress -reform  rooms  in  Boston  and 
viewed  the  red  flannel,  close-fitting  undergar- 
ments which  are  beginning  to  take  the  place 
of  white  cotton  curtains  about  the  legs  for 
snowy  weather. 

"  She  openeth  her  mouth  with  wisdom ; 
and  in  her  tongue  is  the  law  of  kindness." 

The  "perfect  woman  "  will  be  incapable 
of  gossip  or  of  slander,  or  of  any  interference 
vrith  the  domestic  afi'airs  of  her  neighbors. 
She  will  be  so  occupied  with  doing  her  own 
work  well  that  she  will  have  no  time  for  "tea- 
parties  "  where  tongues  unused  to  "  the  law  of 
kindness"  are  wont  to  make  havoc  of  reputa- 
tions. Of  her  neighbors'  virtues  she  will  be 
swift  to  speak,  in  society ;  concerning  their 
faults  she  will  be  charitably  reticent. 

"  She  looketh  well  to  the  ways  of  her  house- 
hold and  eateth  not  the  bread  of  idleness." 


236  The  Perfect  Woman. 

Hence  she  will  never  have  hysteria.  All 
the  doctors  know  that  the  hysterical  women 
are  those  who  have  no  care  of  house  or  chil- 
dren, and  whose  every  thought  is  centered 
npon  their  own  personal  ease  and  happiness. 
The  most  unhappy  woman  in  the  world  is  the 
one  who  has  nothing  to  do  but  be  happy. 

"  Her  children  arise  up  and  call  her  bless- 
ed ;  her  husband  also,  and  he  praiseth  her." 

There  is  no  jewel  in  Victoria's  crown  which 
can  compare  in  luster  with  that  jewel  in  her 
reputation  whereby  she  shines  upon  her  king- 
dom as  a  faithful  wife  and  mother ;  and  each 
one  of  you,  my  dear  girls,  may  shine  in  your 
own  kingdom,  the  home  whose  queen  you  shall 
be,  with  a  luster  which  shall  be  reflected  through 
all  the  ages  beyond  you.  The  character  of  its 
mothers  decides  the  character  of  every  people. 

Every  child  that  is  born  spends  its  first  ten 
years  with  its  mother,  or  with  some  woman 
who  represents  its  mother.  During  those  ten 
years  its  character  is,  substantially,  formed. 

"  For  the  child,  yet  in  native  innocence, 
before  his  parents  have  become  his  serpents  on 
the  tree — speechless,  still  unsusceptible  of  ver- 
bal empoisonment,  led  by  customs,  not  by  words 


The  Perfect  Woman,  237 

and  reasons,  therefore  all  the  more  easily  moved 
on  the  narrow  and  small  pinnacle  of  sensuous 
experience — for  the  child,  I  say,  on  this  bound- 
ary-line bet^Yeen  the  monkey  and  the  man,  the 
most  important  era  of  life  is  contained  in  the 
years  which  immediately  follow  his  non-exist- 
ence, in  which,  for  the  first  time,  he  colors  and 
moulds  himself  by  companionship  with  others. 
The  parent's  hand  may  cover  and  shelter  the 
germinating  seed,  but  not  the  luxuriant  tree; 
consequently,  first  faults  are  the  greatest;  and 
mental  maladies,  unlike  the  small-pox,  are  the 
more  dangerous  the  earlier  they  are  taken. 

"  Every  new  educator  effects  less  than  his 
predecessor;  until  at  last,  if  we  regard  all  life 
as  an  educational  institution,  a  circumnavigator 
of  the  world  is  less  influenced  by  all  the  na- 
tions he  has  seen  than  by  his  nurse." — Jean 
Paul  Fk.  Richtek. 

Who,  then,  shall  dare  to  put  limits  to  the 
"  higher  education "  of  a  being  who  holds  in 
her  hands  the   destinies   of  the  human  race  ! 

"  Noverre  only  required  from  a  good  di- 
rector of  the  ballet — besides  the  art  of  dancing 
— ^geometry,  music,  poetry,  painting,  and  anat- 
omy." 


238  The  Perfect  Woman. 

Shall  a  woman,  who,  b}^  her  influence  over 
her  Bon's  first  decade  of  existeBce,  is  to  do 
more  toward  his  final  manhood  than  all  the 
people  and  all  the  nations  he  is  to  encounter 
in  after  life — shall  she  limit  her  studies  within 
narrower  bounds  than  those  assigned  to  the 
"  director  of  the  ballet "  ?  E^o  !  let  her  climb 
to  the  highest  heights  of  science;  but  let  her 
always  remember  that  she  is  designed  to  be 
a  mother  by  a  law  of  God  which  is  stamped 
upon  her  being  in  characters  which  assert  them- 
Bclves  to  her,  every  hour  of  her  life,  from  the 
time  she  passes  from  childhood  through  the 
portals  which  mark  the  entrance  upon  the  age 
of  potential  maternity  till  she  leaves  those 
eventful   thirty-five  or  forty  years  behind  her ! 

"  Her  sex  is  the  unalterable  decree  which 
she  can  cast  no  ballot  to  vote  away  from  her, 
and  assume  no  profession  to  raze  it  from  the 
eternal  tablets  of  her  distinction.  All  the 
purely  modern  questions  which  relate  to  her 
career — the  efforts  to  equalize  with  man's  her 
w^ages,  to  multiply  her  opportunities,  to  claim 
lier  interest  in  the  politics  of  human  rights, 
to  secure  her  alleviating  presence  in  the  rude 
scenes   of  republicanism  —  successful    as    these 


The  Perfect  Woman,  23^ 

tendencies  may  be,  cannot  transform  woman; 
and  she  will  not  step  out  of  her  Shakspearean 
self.  On  the  figured  coast  of  his  page  her 
Essence  stands,  as  yet  without  the  right  of 
suffrage,  limited  to  household  cares,  or  raised 
to  queenly  ones ;  as  learned  as  Portia  can  be- 
come, but  not  yet  admitted  to  the  profession 
which  she  mimicked ;  provided  for  by  the  vari- 
ous dexterities  of  man,  and  still  undriven  by 
the  modern  threat  of  starvation  into  risking 
a  single  quality  tliat  is  her  birthright.  There 
she  stands  :  the  modern  world,  stooping  at  her 
feet,  will  have  to  yield  some  of  the  reputed 
exclusiveness  of  men,  but  only  such  traits  of 
it  as  Imogen,  Cordelia,  Beatrice,  Portia,  will 
select.  In  all  this  complicated  period  of  over- 
crowded cities,  over -stimulated  competition, 
vices  overfed,  employees  over-purse-proud,  and 
politicians  over-careless,  there  is  no  strait  cruel 
enough  to  compel  the  essential  woman  to  choose 
a  career  which  would  have  unsexed  one  of 
Shakspeare's  plays.  I  have  no  fear.  Stand 
aside:  cease  that  frantic  bracing  of  the  mas- 
culine back  against  so  many  doors  of  proscrip- 
tion. Throw  them  wide  open,  and  let  Shaks- 
peare's stately  crowd  pass  up  and  down  to  scan 


240  The  Perfect  Woman, 

the  vista  through  them.  Come,  patient,  chaste, 
obedient,  high  spirited  Imogen,  too  docile  Ophe- 
lia, frank  Perdita,  warm  Julia,  bright  and  witty 
Beatrice,  whose  tongue  is  a  pen  already,  or  the 
etcher's  tool;  come,  thou  accomplished,  grave, 
acute  and  self-possessed  Portia ;  thou  unsophis- 
ticated Miranda,  who  would  fain  share  thy 
lover's  toil ;  thou  shifty,  prompt  Maria,  hater 
of  humbug;  thou  tender  Yiola — come,  choose 
how  many  of  these  men's  garments  you  will 
continue  to  wear,  preferring  to  be  women. 
l^ot  one  of  them,  I  venture  to  declare,  which 
your  eternal  instinct  will  feel  to  cramp  or  to 
disguise  the  form.  *  Dost  thou  think,'  says 
Rosalind,  *  though  I  am  caparison'd  like  a  man, 
I  have  a  doublet  and  hose  in  my  disposition  V  " 
— ^Rev.  John  Weiss  ("  Shakspe are's  Women  "). 
"  God  is  perfect  in  proportion  as  he  comes 
down,  not  as  he  remains  above " ;  and  so  will 
it  be  with  the  "  perfect  woman."  She  will 
have  climbed  to  the  lieights  of  all  the  natural 
sciences,  a  knowledge  of  which  is  necessary  in 
order  that  she  may  superintend  her  own  do- 
mestic "  sphere,"  and  the  more  thoroughly  she 
understands  her  business,  the  more  ready  will 
she  be  to  "  come  down  "  from  theory  to  prac- 


The  Perfect  Wom.an.  2il 

tice.  It  is  one  thing  for  a  pretty  girl,  radiant 
in  white  silk  and  roses  and  illusion,  mounted 
on  the  rostrum  before  an  audience  in  a  fashion- 
able schoolroom  on  graduation  day,  to  expound 
the  theory  of  the  conversion  of  starch  into 
sugar,  and  to  cover  the  blackboard  with  for- 
mulae which  express  the  chemical  changes  which 
result  from  the  mixing  of  flour  and  water  and 
salt  and  yeast.  She  may  go  to  the  top  of  the 
"  Bel  Alp  "  with  Prof.  Tyndall  and  his  twenty- 
five  hermetically-sealed  bottles  of  infusion  of 
beef  and  turnips,  and  tell  her  audience  all  that 
Prof.  Tyndall  has  told  the  world  about  "  spon- 
taneous generation,"  in  connection  with  the 
yeast  which  is  mixed  with  the  flour  and  the 
water;  and,  by  reason  of  her  ability  to  do  this, 
she  may  be  marked  "  perfect "  in  the  school 
rank-book ;  but  unless  she  can  "  come  down  " 
from  the  rostrum  to  the  kitchen,  in  a  clean 
calico  dress,  and  prove  her  theories  by  making 
some  "perfect"  bread,  she  is  far  from  "per- 
fect "  herself. 

The  health  of  her  entire  "  household,"  when 
she  gets  one,  will  depend  upon  her  ability  to 
"come  down"  to  the  minutest  details  of  kitchen, 
laundry  and  nursery  life.     She  may  be  so  cir- 


24:2  The  Perfect  Woman, 

cumstanced  thaft  she  need  only  superintend  the 
work  in  these  various  departments  of  her 
''  sphere " ;  but  no  one  can  superintend  who 
has  not  first  learned  to  execute.  The  quality 
of  her  bread  and  the  physique  of  her  children 
are  the  points  whereon  the  reputation  of  the 
"  perfect  woman  "  rests  for  its  support.  If  the 
bread  and  the  children  are  poor  and  miserable 
and  "  slack-baked,"  they  but  reflect  the  same 
qualities  from  her  who  stamps  her  character 
on  them.  Jerry  Cruncher,  bear  that  he  is,  is 
yet  on  the  truth's  side  when  he  grumbles  at 
Mrs.  Cruncher:  "With  your  flying  in  the  face 
of  your  own  wittles  and  drink !....  Look  at 
your  boy :  he's  as  thin  as  a  lath.  Do  you  call 
yourself  a  mother,  and  not  know  that  a  moth- 
er's first  duty  is  to  blow  her  boy  out  ?" 

And  so  our  fair  graduate  upon  the  rostrum 
may  read  her  well-rounded  dissertation  upon 
the  "  Duties  of  Home,"  but  unless  she  has 
acquainted  herself  with  all  those  details  of 
anatomy,  physiology  and  hygiene  which  every 
woman  must  know  before  she  can  "  blow  her 
boy  out "  into  a  model  man,  she  comes  far 
short  of  "  the  perfect  woman."  She  cannot,  in 
justice  to  herself,  nor  to  the  children  she  is  to 


The  Perfect  Woman.  243 

bear,  omit  the  practical  reading  of  that  book 
"  in  which  all  her  members  are  Avritten  " — the 
book  of  life.  This  should  be  read  till  its  les- 
sons stand  out  in  letters  of  light,  and  with  the 
assurance  that,  if  disobeyed,  they  will  turn  to 
letters  of  fire !  But  she  can  never  study  this 
book  of  books  by  simply  reading  about  it  in 
printed  books. 

*'  Printed  books,"  says  the  German,  "  are 
the  spectacles  through  which  the  world  is  seen : 
good  for  weak  eyes,  it  is  true,  but  a  free  look 
at  life  keeps  the  eye  healthier." 

The  physician,  who  assumes  to  know  how 
to  assist  nature  out  of  morbid  conditions,  must 
devote  himself  or  herself,  with  the  utmost  fidel- 
ity, to  the  study  of  anatomy  and  physiology, 
before  lie  or  she  can  presume  to  know  anything 
about  diseases.  Shall  the  woman  who  is  to 
bear  children  and  to  nurse  them  during  the 
years  of  helpless  infancy  be  limited  to  a  few 
printed  books  for  the  acquisition  of  the  knowl- 
edge requisite  for  filling  her  "  sphere,"  and 
never  go  to  the  dissecting-room  to  read  nature's 
most  impressive  lessons  ?  No  !  "  The  perfect 
woman  "  will  know  the  anatomy  of  her  body 
60   well   that   she   will   respect    it    beyond   all 


244  The  Perfect  Woman, 

possibility  of  abusing  it,  and  so  will  ebe  be 
fitted  to  bear  and  to  rear  the  jperfect  man 
whom  the  world  will  be  obliged  to  wait  for 
till  "the  perfect  woman"  comes  to  bear  him. 
These,  then,  form  the  essential  sciences 
necessary  for  the  accomplishment  of 

*'A  perfect  woman,  nobly  planned." 

Nor  can  she  dispense  with  a  knowledge  of 
literature,  of  history,  and  of  the  fine  arts. 
There  must  be  beauty  in  the  "  new  household," 
and  the  "perfect  woman"  will  know  the  differ- 
ence between  a  highly  -  colored  chromo  of  a 
long  woman,  in  a  long  blue  dress,  clinging  to 
a  cross  on  a  rock  in  mid-ocean,  and  a  photo- 
graph of  the  "  Sistine  Madonna " ;  and  her 
home  will  testify  to  this  knowledge. 

"A  little  music,  too,  we  want. 
In  lieaven  the  angels  sing." 

In  the  present  uncertainty  concerning  "the 
music  of  the  future,"  it  is  safe  to  say  that  she 
will  prefer  the  music  of  Beethoven  and  Men- 
delssohn to  that  of  more  modern  composers. 

For  forms  of  beauty  in  vases  and  all  those 
accessories  to  a  beautiful  home  where  the  chil- 
dren will  be  so  happy  that  they  would  rather 


The  Perfect  Woman,  245 

be  there  than  anywhere  else,  she  will  hardly 
be  content  with  highly-colored  paper  mockeries 
of  birds  and  butterflies  and  flow^ers  gummed 
upon  drain -pipes;  for  the  photographer  will 
have  shown  her  what  Greece  and  Eome  have 
given  us  for  beauty,  where  she  cannot  go  to 
Greece  and  Eome  to  see  for  herself,  and  she 
will  choose  accordingly;  while  the  children 
will  be  so  guided  by  her  in  the  study  of  nature 
that  they  wdll  raise  their  own  real  butterflies 
and  make  their  own  collections  of  "sermons 
in  stones,"  which  will  so  occupy  their  minds 
that  sermons  for  misdeeds  will  be  unknown  to 
them.  There  is  no  surer  way  of  keeping  boys 
and  girls  "in  the  way  they  should  go"  than  by 
interesting  them  in  the  study  of  nature.  "  Noth- 
ing is  beautiful  but  that  which  is  true,"  and 
nothing  is  so  true  as  nature. 

Such  are  the  main  requisitions  for  your 
education  as  women. 

"  Women  are  by  nature  intended  for  people 
of  business :  they  are  called  to  it  by  the  equal 
balance  of  their  powers  and  their  keen  sense 
of  observation.  Children  require  an  ever-open 
eye,  but  not  an  ever-open  mouth ;  claude  os^ 
ajperi  oculos.     But  what  circle  of  talking,  which 


246  The  Perfect  Woman. 

always  incloses  only  small  and  trifling  relations, 
could  so  well  exercise  that  ever-present  glance 
as  the  circle  of  domestic  affairs  ?  Boys  des- 
tined for  certain  occupations  —  to  be  artists, 
professors,  or  mathematicians  —  may  dispense 
with  a  capacity  for  business,  but  never  a  girl 
who  will  marry — especially  one  of  the  above- 
mentioned  boys. . .  .If,  now,  a  girl  is  intended 
to  grow  up  with  a  clear  eye  for  everything 
around  her;  if  she  is  not  to  waste  her  many 
eyes  in  company,  as  Argus  did  his,  by  mis- 
placing them,  as  painted  eyes  in  a  peacock's 
tail ;  or  if  slie  is  not,  like  that  sea-fish,  the  tur- 
bot,  to  have  two  eyes  on  the  right  side,  but, 
in  compensation,  to  be  blind  on  the  left — let 
her  be  many-sidedly  exercised  in  household 
affairs ;  and  the  parents  must  not  be  disturbed 
if  some  admirer  of  an  ethereal  bride  should 
object  to  her,  as  Plato  reproached  Eudoxus, 
with  having  profaned  pure  mathematics  by  ap- 
plying them  to  mechanics ;  for  to-day  or  to- 
morrow the  wedding  comes,  and  the  husband, 
the  honeymoon  being  past,  kisses  the  mother's 
hand  for  all  that  the  daughter  does  contrary 
to  his  expectation." — Jean  Paul  Fk.  E-ichteb 
("Levana"). 


The  Perfect  Woman.  247 

The  time  required  for  fitting  yourself  for 
this  "  business  woman  *'  for  which  E^ature  in- 
tends you  is  nothing  less  than  your  first  twenty- 
five  years  of  life.  Your  body  does  not  acquire 
its  full  development  in  less  than  that  time ; 
much  less  do  your  powers  of  judgment  attain 
their  maturity.  The  great  underlying  cause  of 
the  painfully  large  majority  of  mismarriages 
and  divorces  which  disgrace  American  life  is 
to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  our  girla  marry 
too  young  and  on  too  short  acquaintance. 
Some  one  has  wisely  said  that  "  instead  of 
making  divorces  more  easy,  we  need  to  make 
marriages  more  difficult."  No  woman  under 
twenty-five  can  assume  the  anxieties  and  re- 
sponsibilities of  the  home  and  the  nursery  with- 
out a  premature  renouncing  of  the  free  and 
joyous  life  of  a  glad  and  buoyant  girlhood. 
"Eejoice,"  O  young  woman,  ''in  thy  youth, 
and  let  thy  heart  cheer  thee  in  the  days  of  thy 
youth." 

Even  by  so  much  as  you  are  raised  above 
the  fish  by  being  a  warm-blooded  creature  witli 
a  diaphragm,  by  so  much  are  you  entitled  to 
exercise  that  diaphragm  freely  by  laughing 
along  your  first  twenty-five  years. 


248  The  Perfect  Woman. 

Says  Jean  Paul,  also  in  "  Levana " :  "I 
could  write  a  whole  paragraph  merely  in  favor 
of  cheerfulness  and  merriment  in  girls,  and 
dedicate  it  to  mothers,  who  so  frequently  for- 
bid them.  But  seriously  to  assure  girls  they 
may  laugh  on  suitable  occasions  would  look 
very  much  like  presenting  them  an  opportunity 
of  doing  so.  Mothers  have  much  a  habit  of 
grumbling,  even  though  they  may  smile  in- 
wardly; the  daughters,  on  the  contrary,  gen- 
erally only  laugh  visibly.  The  former  have 
passed  out  of  the  triumphant  church  of  virgins 
into  the  church  militant  of  matrons ;  their  grow- 
ing duties  have  increased  their  seriousness ;  the 
bridegroom  is  changed  from  a  honey  bird,  who 
invited  them  to  the  sweets  of  the  honeymoon, 
into  a  resolute  honey-hunting  bear,  who  will 
himself  have  the  honey." 

My  final  word  is  to  you  of  "the  triumph- 
ant church  of  virgins"  who,  like  my  little 
Daisy,  of  whom  I  told  you  in  the  previous 
chapter,  will  decide  to  have  "the  best,  or  none." 
Cheap  husbands,  like  other  cheap  things,  are 
always  plenty,  but  good  ones  are  scarce,  and 
so  it  will  be  "  none  "  for  many  of  you. 

The  world  has  plenty  of  work  for  you,  as 


The  Perfect  Woman,  249 

single  women,  after  you  have  fitted  yourselves 
to  be  perfect  women.  Nor  is  it  a  joyless  work. 
Far,  very  far  from  it !  If  it  be  '^  more  blessed 
to  give  than  to  receive,"  then,  indeed,  are  you 
blessed  among  women  by  reason  of  the  joy 
which  you  can  give  in  ways  in  which  that  sis- 
ter walked  of  whom  Whittier  sings : 

"Next,  the  dear  aunt,  whose  smile  of  cheer 
And  voice  in  dreams  I  see  and  hear — 
The  sweetest  woman  ever  Fate 
Perverse  denied  a  household  mate; 
Who,  lonely,  homeless,  not  the  less 
Found  peace  in  love's  unselfishness, 
And  welcome  wheresoe'er  she  went; 
A  calm  and  gracious  element. 
Whose  presence  seemed  the  sweet  income 
And  womanly  atmosphere  of  home — 
Called  up  her  girlhood  memories, 
The  huskings  and  the  apple-bees, 
The  sleigh-rides  and  the  summer  sails, 
Weaving  through  all  the  poor  details 
And  homespun  warp  of  circumstance 
A  golden  woof-thread  of  romance. 
For  well  she  kept  her  genial  mood 
And  simple  faith  of  maidenhood; 
Before  her  still  a  cloud-land  lay. 
The  mirage  loomed  across  her  way; 
The  morning  dew,  that  dries  so  soon 
With  others,  glistened  at  her  noon; 
Through  years  of  toil  and  soil  and  care. 


250  The  Perfect  Woman, 

From  ^lossy  tress  to  thin,  gray  hair, 

All  unprofaned  she  held  apart 

The  virgin  fancies  of  her  heart. 

Be  shame  to  him  of  woman  born 

Who  hath  for  such  but  thought  of  scorn." 

And   BO  may  each   of  you  find 

"peace  in  love's  unselfishness," 

in  many  ways  which  I  might  detail;  but  as  a 
teacher  of  physiolog}',  it  remains  for  me  only 
to  point  you  in  the  ways  where  Kature  has 
put  you  by  the  unalterable  decree  of  sex.  The 
first  of  these  ways,  after  that  of  the  mother,  is 
the  teacher,  and  for  this  profession  you  need 
all  the  preparation  which  the  mother  needs, 
and  even  more,  for  you  will  have  not  only  to 
supplement  her  work,  but  also  to  amend  it  in 
many  ways  where  hers  will  be  defective. 

For  this  work  you  will  need  to  fit  yourself 
with  the  same  fidelity  with  which  your  brother 
must  fit  himself  for  his  profession ;  and  when 
he  goes  to  the  Technological  Institute  to  learn 
to  be  an  engineer^  you  will  go  to  the  J^ormal 
School  to  learn  to  be  a  teacher.  Do  not,  I 
pray  you,  ofier  yourself  as  a  guide  for  other 
people's  children  without  this  preparation.  If 
you  do,  you  put  yourself  in  the  ranks  of  those 


The  Perfect  Woman.  251 

who  hang  out  a  doctor's  sign  without  ever 
having  made  a  study  of  the  profession  of  medi- 
cine. "Would  you  call  a  man  to  repair  your 
water-pipes  who  had  never  studied  plumbing  ? 
Would  you  ask  a  man  to  build  you  a  house 
who  has  made  no  study  of  architecture  ?  Will 
you  trust  your  ^'  house  not  made  with  hands " 
to  a  man  or  a  woman  who  has  never  seen  the 
inside  of  a  human  body,  but  who  professes  to 
be  gifted  with  a  supernatural  "clairvoyance" 
which  can  dispense  with  all  educational  advan- 
tages and  enable  its  possessor  to  step  from  the 
blacksmith  shop  and  the  herb-tea  factory  into 
the  presence  of  death,  with  power  to  avert  the 
dread  monster's  sway  ? 

Will  you  assume  that  you  can  mould  the 
plastic  mind  of  a  little  child  unaided  by  a  love 
which  is  greater  than  mother-love — the  love  of 
a  profession  which  calls  for  most  faithful  and 
accurate  preparation  ? 

The  third  place  which  belongs  to  woman 
by  physiological  decree  is  the  sick-room ;  and 
even  as  she  needs  to  be  educated  in  all  the 
ways  I  have  indicated  in  order  that  she  may 
meet  the  requirements  of  the  first  two  of  her 
physiologically-decreed    ''  spheres,"   even    more 


252  The  Perfect  Woman. 

emphatically  does  she  need  the  education  which 
the  Medical  College  alone  can  give,  if  she  as- 
sumes to  cope  with  disease. 

Mother,  Teacher,  l^urse,  Doctor :  either  or  all 
of  these  you  may  become,  because  you  are  wo- 
men. For  anything  more — "What  shall  a  Por- 
tia undertake  to  do  ?  That  which  is  level  to 
Portia's  capacity.  Must  she  do  it  ?  That  is  as 
she  herself  may  decide.  But  we  let  our  women 
do  the  dirty  drudgery  of  kitchens,  expose  them- 
selves to  the  ^.ublicity  of  saloons,  grow  sallow 
and  stooping  over  spindles,  and  spend  all  day 
dodging  poverty  behind  a  counter.  "We  pay  our 
money  to  see  them  exercise  their  various  talents 
on  the  stage,  where  no  exigency  of  the  plot 
surprises  us,  no  shifts  of  costume  seem  inappro- 
priate, no  want  of  it  is  amazing.  Oh,  we  gen- 
tlemen are  such  sticklers  for  proprietj^,  so  in- 
terested to  keep  our  women  well  sequestered ! 
She  must  not  speak  in  public,  but  she  may 
sing.  Jenny  Lind's  open  mouth  does  not  look 
indecent,  but  Lucretia  Motfs  is  an  outrage  or 
our  modesty !  Where  will  you  draw  a  line 
through  the  crowd  of  competent  intelligences  ? 
1  would  draw  it  very  quickly  by  putting  clever- 
ness in  the  place  of  dullness,   though    many  a 


The  Perfect  Woman.  253 

preacher  and  schoolmaster,  many  a  vapid  lect- 
urer, would  have  to  budge.  Why  should  infe- 
riority in  a  swallow-tail  be  so  valued  and  pro- 
tected against  superiority  in  skirts  ?  Napoleon 
said,  *  Careers  are  open  to  talents';  but  he 
dreaded  lively  and  gifted  women,  and  got  them 
out  of  the  country,  wisely  suspecting  that  their 
inpight  would  fathom  his  weakness.  But  no 
country  can  flourish  till  the  talents  and  morals 
of  women  mix  with  its  affairs.  I  cannot  see 
why  dullness  is  more  respectable  in  a  man  than 
in  a  woman.  ..  .Portia  is  quite  competent  to 
lead  a  single  life,  and  might  earn  a  lu-illiant 
living  if  fate  stripped  her  of  wealth.  Being 
without  a  particle  of  ambition,  she  would  have 
to  be  driven  by  poverty  into  setting  up  house- 
keeping with  her  gifts.  But  no  woman  is  fine 
enough  to  persuade  Nature  to  grant  her  ex- 
emption from  the  pain  of  love.  There  will 
always  be  exceptions — an  Olympia  Morata,  a 
Cassandra  Fedele,  Florence  Nightingale,  Harriet 
Martineau,  Maria  Mitchell,  Clara  Barton — na- 
tures of  great  constancy,  who  are  absorbed  in 
scholarship,  poesy,  or  good  works,  with  a  tem- 
perament that  has  an  even  graciousness  toward 
all  men,  and  just  pauses  short  of  honoring  one 


254:  The  Perfect  Woman. 

exclusively.  Or,  perhaps,  the  genius  of  such 
women  was  the  gradual  rally  of  time  around 
an  early  disappointment,  whose  story  never  will 
be  told ;  when  something  baffled  a  first  love — 
as  the  pearl-oyster,  stimulated  by  some  foreign 
substance  that  has  intruded  into  its  retreat, 
slowly  coats  it  all  over  with  nacre,  till  beauty 
incorporates  the  secret  ill.  Man  covets  it,  but 
can  never  fix  the  date  when  the  trouble  of  a 
fine  soul  began  to  revenge  itself  so  nobly." — 
JoHJ!f  Weiss  ("Portia"). 

A  final  word  to  you,  my  dear  girls  of  the 
Framingham  Normal  School,  who  have  been 
oftenest  in  my  thoughts  while  I  have  been  writ- 
ing these  pages.  Standing,  as  1  do,  in  the  rela- 
tion of  an  older  sister,  who  went  out  from  this 
our  Alma  Mater  s  fostcrino^  care  before  anv  of 
you  saw  the  liglit  of  life,  it  is  with  an  almost 
maternal  solicitude  that  I  watch  you  from  day 
to  day  and  long  to  guard  you  from  those  sad 
consequences  which  I  too  well  know  must  befall 
you  if  you  neglect  and  abuse  that  body  which 
is  "  the  coat  of  mail  and  breastplate  of  the 
soul." 

You  can  do  and   become   all   things  which 
may  become  a  "  perfect  woman  "  if  you  will  but 


The  Perfect  Woman,  255 

learn,  in  the  days  of  your  youth,  that  all  sick- 
ness and  all  suffering  are  the  inevitable  penalties 
of  disobedience.  "Be  ye  therefore  perfect,  even 
as  your  Father  which  is  in  heaven  is  perfect " ; 
and  as  an  example  of  what  a  single  woman  may 
become  who  makes  this  command  the  rule  of 
her  life,  I  can  do  no  better  than  to  point  yoii 
to  the  beautiful  presence  whose  judicious  and 
loving  care  makes  your  school-life  a  daily  proof 
that  a  woman  can  become  as  efficient,  and  yet 
as  womanly,  as  a  Principal  of  a  E^ormal  School 
as  she  can  in  the  Home. 


INDEX. 

A. 

A  bad  habit Page  107 

About  wells  and  typhoid  fever 219 

About  bangles 10 

About  the  husband 200 

About  people  who  use  their  muscles  well 120 

A  criticism  by  Socrates 105 

Activity  and  oxygen  130 

Adam  Clark's  burnt-offering  to  the  devil 40 

A  little  more  from  Solomon 234 

A  little  boy's  philosophy 223 

A  look  beyond  the  orange  blossoms 205 

Anointing  of  Juno  and  "Venus 153 

An  emperor's  humor 154 

A  pernicious  fashion 106 

A  remark  from  Jean  Paul  Richter 237 

A  sunny  house 217 

A  sensitive  man 208 

A  sermon  from  the  woodchuck 216 

A  sick  simpleton 118 

Aspasia  and  Cleone 190 

A  twenty-eight  mile  viaduct 151 

A  Western  lawyer's  advice  ,.,,,,,,,,,, ICS 

"H. 

Bands  that  are  forbidden 63 

Beautiful  Greeks 87 

Beauty  and  behavior. 169 


258  Index. 

Best  brain  food Page  101 

Best  hours  for  sleep 128 

Blossom  and  fruit 136 

Brain  and  nerves 97 

C. 

Carlyle  on  clotlies 171 

Causes  of  disease 143 

Castles  in  the  air , 209 

Charmides  and  Minerva 34 

Cheap  husbands 248 

Cleanliness 322 

Clothing  the  feet , 183 

Close-fitting  undergarments 180 

Complementary  colors 186 

Corsets 182 

D. 

Dirt,  debt,  and  the  devil 157 

Diseases  of  women 143 

Doctors  and  women 174 

Doughnuts 46 

Dress  reform 175 

E. 

Ear-rings  and  bangles 189 

Emerson  on  Beauty . .  .150 

Epimeda's  vow 192 

Epidemics  of  the  Middle  Ages 158 

F. 

Faded  carpets  or  faded  faces 93 

Final  words 255 

First  corset 188 

Freckles  and  moth-patches 167 

Functions  of  the  skin 152 

G. 
Golden  child 163 

Graham  gems 52 

H. 

Heart  and  Cupid 54 

Her  Majesty's  shoemaker 21 

House  of  four  stories 146 


Index.  259 

Ho"w  to  drink,  and  what Page  38 

How  we  breathe 68 

How  we  ought  not  to  breathe 70 

How  plants  and  o.nimals  are  perpetuated 134 

How  to  boil  potatoes 50 

How  women  kill  themselves 8 

How  to  become  beautiful 146 

How  to  be  handsome  old  women 64 

How  the  star-fisheS  do  it 82 

Horses,  dogs,  and  orators 90 

Hygiene  of  the  skin 156 

I. 
Introductory , 5 

V. 

Jean  Paul  Richter's  view  of  woman 245 

Jerry  Cruncher's  grumbling 242 

John  Quincy  Adams'  habit 156 

Joel  Benton  on  Apples. , 47 

Juno  and  the  turtle 15 

K. 
Know  thyself 26 

L. 
Life  of  the  protozoas 29 

M. 

Mate  and  the  home 199 

*'3lince-pie"-ty 51 

Moist  and  sweaty  feet 66 

Modern  troglodytes ,  96 

More  about  respiration 72 

Morning  bath  162 

Morning  wrapper 196 

Most  unhappy  woman  in  the  world 236 

Mr.  Dick's  prescription  for  little  X)avy 161 

Music  of  the  voice 75 

N. 

Nature's  sermon 94 

Nerves  and  nervousness < 113 

O. 
Obeying  Nature's  laws 145 


260  Index. 

OJympia  Horata,  Cassandra  Fedele,  Florence 
Nightingale,    Harriet  Martineau,   Maria 

Mitchell,  Clara  Barton Page  253 

P. 

Pain  of  a  new  idea 176 

Perversion  of  the  sewing-machine 214 

Phosphorus  and  matches 13 

Platonic  definitions 26 

Poetry  of  dresSw 181 

Pork  as  a  diet 62 

Prayer  of  the  nerves 116 

Pretty  schoolgirl  and  the  kitchen 241 

Pure  water 218 

S. 
Self-control 206 

Self-development 226 

Shadows  on  the  wall . .  .108 

Shakspeare's  women 239 

Shawls  and  muffs 194 

Sickly  Eves 6 

Socrates'  story  of  the  grasshopper 84 

Solomon's  ideal. 229 

Street-sweeping 132 

"  Sublata  causa,  cessat  effectus" 92 

Successor  of  the  chemise 177 

T. 

The  apple  and  its  companions 61 

"The  best,  or  none  !" 201 

The  cuckoo's  nest 211 

The  future  undergarment , 173 

The  perfect  woman 225 

The  perfect  woman  esthetically  considered.  .244 

The  unforgetful  photograph 110 

Time  to  marry 247 

Tri-cuspid  gates 58 

Twenty-five  years  of  laughter 247 

Two  idiots. 202 

Two  kinds  of  women 228 

Two  nervous  systems 99 


Index,  2G1 

U. 

Useless  clothing Page  213 

V. 

Veiled  enchantress Ill 

Voltaire's  miracle 118 

W. 

What  the  perfect  woman  "will  know 233 

"What  dress  reform  aims  at 179 

What  will  make  the  hair  grow 168 

What  ISTapoleon  said 253 

What  to  eat,  and  how  to  cook  it 42 

What  Dr.  Edward  Clarke  said 231 

What  causes  cold  feet 06 

What  Dr.  Johnson  asked  his  physician 127 

What  causes  varicose  veins 64 

What  a  Portia  shall  undertake .252 

What  is  good  for  pimples 164 

What  woman's  education  should  be 238 

What  Thackeray  said 78 

What  the  Church  of  Rome  does 126 

What  Plato  said 10 

What  marriage  requires 207 

What  causes  palpitation 65 

What  Horace  Maun  said 139 

Whittier's  dear  aunt 249 

Why  girls  faint 188 

Why  the  Greenlanders  eat  candles 45 

Woman's  place 251 

Women  of  {Shakspeare ..,., ,,123 


University  of 
Connecticut 

Libraries 


